| [ SPECIAL DELIVERY ] | |
| "No way! I'm not doing it." | |
| "Oh, I think you are, buddy." | |
| "I have a date tonight, Pete. I'm seeing Shelly for a movie. We're meeting at 10 o'clock and it's already half past nine!" | |
| Pete sighed. "I really need you on this one. It's a big delivery and I ain't got anyone else to make the run. This one's on you, sunshine." | |
| "Pete, please. This is my last chance with her. You know I screwed things up last time. I need this." | |
| Pete put down the timetable he held in his huge, chubby hands, and turned to face Jack straight on, and in his best, no-nonsense tone, he said, "Look son, I feel your pain. I really do. But I have a date too; with a huge fucking widescreen television that I just bought over the weekend and a brand spanking new Blu-Ray player. If I let my ladies down they may never forgive me." | |
| "Damn it, Pete. This is BS." | |
| Pete laughed. "It's pronounced 'bullshit' Jack, and yeah, maybe it is bullshit...maybe it is... but life ain't altogether fair and right now I'm the big bad boss in your life. And in this greasy little hellhole, fairness and justice hold no quarter, my young friend. You're making the fucking delivery or I'll be having that uniform off your back right now. There are plenty of unemployed desperadoes out there that would jump at the chance to wear it and I haven't got time for your teenage dipshittery. That clear?!" | |
| Jack looked down at his too-tight shirt - bright red with black sleeves - and the annoyingly cheerful logo emblazoned above his right breast that read 'Antonio's Pizzeria'. | |
| Wouldn't be much of a loss, he thought to himself. | |
| Pete was waiting, eyes glued on Jack with a look of bemusement that said he couldn't believe this kid may just throw in the towel for some tail. | |
| But this wasn't just some pretty girl, and he wasn't merely some horny teenager. This was Shelly Reardon. Head of Hill-vale High's prestigious poetry society and the one and only girl he'd loved his whole short life. | |
| This wasn't about carnality - this was about true love- the realisation of all his childhood dreams. | |
| Since the first time he'd laid eyes on her at the age of five; he'd known she'd be the one he'd marry. First, of course, he'd have to woo her – a step in his master plan that had taken over a decade to overcome. | |
| Overcome it he did, though, and after waiting all these long years he'd asked her out. Amazingly, she said yes, and last night was their first date. | |
| It hadn't gone very well. | |
| Jack was a nervous type. Always had been, always would be, and when it came to being around Shelly, his affliction took on somewhat epic proportions. | |
| When they'd been just friends it was manageable but last night, being on a date with her – it had been a nerve-shredding Fiasco for the ages. | |
| He'd been a stuttering, gibbering wreck the entire time, and in a valiant attempt to settle into the evening, he'd drank a little too much. | |
| Well, a lot too much actually. | |
| Jack's stomach turned at the memory, vague though it was through the lens of his alcoholic stupor. | |
| There'd been confessions of love, drunken attempts at seduction, and vomiting – lots and lots of vomiting. | |
| Nobody's idea of fun and fancy... | |
| "What's it gonna be, Jacky?" asked Pete, startling Jack from his shameful musings. | |
| Hell! He really needed this job, too. Without it he had nothing. Jack never came from a wealthy family; in truth it was quite the opposite. He was one step up from white trash and five flights down from the hallowed heights of the working class. His parents had no cash to spare - not after drowning their sorrows under an alcoholic sea each time they received their joint welfare allowance - so the simple pleasure of having some pocket money was non-existent, and he'd surely have absolutely no chance with Shelly were he to announce that for future dates, they'd be frequenting a park bench, watching ducks swim. | |
| That just wouldn't do at all. | |
| One last plead for mercy. | |
| . "Please, Pete. I'm begging you, man. This girl means everything to me." | |
| Pete was a man a few words, "Don't give a shit, kid. What's it gonna be? You're either taking on this delivery or you're taking your achy-breaky heart to collect your fucking food stamps." | |
| Jack saw no reasoning with the man. "Jesus. Okay, I'll do it. Just give me five minutes to call Shelly, ok?" | |
| "I'll give you three." | |
| *** | |
| Jack stood out front of Antonio's and took a long slow lungful of the cool night air. The sky was clearer than usual despite the incoming clouds over the sea, and the stars shone down on all LA, and for the briefest moment he wondered how many lovers were gazing up at those stars, arm in arm and happy. It made him feel a little sick. | |
| This is far too beautiful an evening to have your heart broke, he thought, wearily. | |
| Maybe she'll understand. She knows I need the work, and she's met Pete the Prick. She knows he's no teddy bear. Maybe she'll be cool... | |
| Feeling like the world was closing its curtains on his heart, he took a deep breath and dialled her number. He didn't have to look it up; he knew it by heart, and had done since the first time he dialled her. | |
| After a tension drenched eternity that lasted exactly the length of four rings, Shelly answered, and Jack felt like he was stood in front of a firing squad. | |
| "Hi Jack." She sounded happy to hear from him. Good start. | |
| "Hey Shelly, listen, I gotta make this short. Pete has me bent over a barrel here. We got one last delivery just came through, here - a big one. There's no one else here to make the journey. He..." | |
| Shelly sounded completely unfazed. "Are you going to be a little late? If so, it's fine, Jack. I know how much this job means to you." | |
| As always, she made the greatest of crises seem as weightless as a summer breeze. | |
| "I'm sorry, Shelly. I know I messed up the other night...I was nervous, and I had a little too much to drink, and now this. I..." | |
| Shelly finished his sentence for him, effectively letting him off the hook in her inimitably compassionate way. "...you like me a lot and you got scared, and it won't happen again. It's all fine, Jack. I know who you really are; it's not like we just met, after all," she laughed, "if you consider all our play dates together as children, our dates together probably number in the hundreds. One bum date out of hundreds isn't terrible odds, so don't sweat it...I'm not." | |
| She's amazing. "Thanks Shelly. I'll be as quick as I can. I'd have you wait at our meeting spot but I may be as much as two hours. It's a long way off, this delivery. Can't fathom why they called Antonio's. There has to be at least twenty Pizza restaurants closer than ours, and it's not like the Pizzas are worth a damn." | |
| The sound of her laughter elevated him. Being able to make her laugh had always made him feel ten feet tall. | |
| "Look, don't worry about it. It's the weekend, Jack. I'm a big girl and I can stay up after my bedtime," she laughed "and in other good news, mom and dad are staying with friends this weekend, so we can hang out at my house." | |
| Her house - Jack gulped, and worried it was audible on her end of the line. "Your house?" he stammered. | |
| "Yes, Jack...my house. You know...Where I live?" She teased. | |
| "Okay; sure. That would be...great. We'll do that then." | |
| "Lovely! We can stay up all night and watch scary movies. I'll get the popcorn in, boyo! Bring some beers with you - no whiskey though!" | |
| Scary movies were her bread and butter. He'd never met anyone as obsessed with horror as Shelly, male or female. Jack couldn't quite understand the draw of such lewd material, but it made her happy, and that in turn made him happy. He laughed himself this time. "No whiskey. I promise." | |
| "Where is it you're delivering to, exactly?" she asked. | |
| "Oh, some family manor a thousand clicks outside the city. I even have a name – 'Athos House' – sounds mighty pretentious for L.A, huh? I'm guessing they're well off." | |
| "Athos House? I know the place! Well, I've heard of it. They're more than well-off, Jack...they're practically swimming in money." Shelly's excitable nature was infectious. | |
| "How come you know of it?" Jack was genuinely surprised. | |
| "I haven't seen the house, but I've heard all about it from my Dad. He goes up that way sometimes to do jobs for the owners. You know how he is - master of all trades and all that jazz." | |
| Jack knew. | |
| Like his own family, Shelly's parents lived and survived on the seedier side of town, where the cities angels feared to tread and their bright lights never shone. That's where the similarities ended, though. | |
| Yes, they both shared a common economic background - victims of the seemingly unending recession that had been hoisted on a generation with no favouring to colour or creed - but unlike Jack's mother and father, Shelly's parents were honest, decent folk who believed in the fight to make something better of themselves. Both families may be struggling, but for Shelly's family, struggling meant more than reaching for the next bottle of bourbon or rolling the next joint. It meant hard and honest working, real determination and an admirable sense of integrity no matter how far the system had dragged them down. | |
| It sounded like her father's work had been taking him far and wide, even out-with the city limits, and it lightened Jack's heart to know that at least Shelly had a father who had his child's best interests at heart. | |
| "So? What's it like?" he asked, feeling genuinely excited about the trip now. | |
| "Well, apparently it's this huge, gothic mansion, nestled deep among the redwoods way out in the middle of nowhere. Sounds like it's straight out of a horror movie, right? I'd love to see it myself someday. Dad says they have beautiful gardens with a maze and even a small lake. He only ever met the owners of the house once – on his first call out - and has been greeted solely by one butler or another ever since that first time." | |
| "They have Butlers?" Jack asked, amused by her enthusiasm. | |
| Shelly laughed again, light as air, "Yep. They sure do, Jack. They have them dressed up like penguins - as prim and proper as all get out. Sounds like The Overlook Hotel, huh?" | |
| Shelly never missed an opportunity to reference her beloved horror pictures. | |
| "Wonder if I'll get to meet the owners. I've never met a rich person before." | |
| "I'll cross my fingers for you, honey." The playful sarcasm was evident in her tone, but that wasn't what had Jack beaming like a kid in a candy store. | |
| She called me,' honey'. Jack's heart beat like a bass drum – his mood soaring. | |
| "I'd better go, Shell. I'll call you on the way back, if Lloyd doesn't get me first!" | |
| He could tell she was smiling by the tone of her voice. | |
| "Make sure you do. See you soon, Jack. Oh, and for the record, it was the Janitor who done all the killing in 'The Shining', not Lloyd. I'll let you off this time though, buster." | |
| She hung up, laughing as she did so. | |
| *** | |
| Antonio's had been officially closed to the public for nearing half an hour by the time the enormous order was ready for delivery; only the neon sign that flickered red then green, remained burning at the stores front end – a reminder to all passing drivers that tomorrow may well be a good damn time for Pizza, no-matter how poorly made. Jack waited patiently in the restaurants overly spacious kitchen, eying up the chef, David, like a crack addict fixing to score as he hopped from left foot to right foot, wired with excitement as he played over the romance that the evening promised to hold. | |
| When I get this job over and done with... | |
| He had to admit it - he was even a little excited about the job itself. His girlfriend's enthusiasm really had a way of lighting a fire in his normally mediocre imagination. | |
| Jack also knew she had a way with words, though, and she wasn't above embellishing a tale for maximum impact. It was part of her charm, and it had carried her far into the academic stratosphere of Hill-vale High. Her talents in the arts had secured her a position in the underbelly of the daunting social pyramid that was the American higher education system, but in a world where intelligence was frowned upon, she was destined to always be on the outside; at the bottom of the social barrel – looking in or looking up. | |
| Her beauty was such that it may have held the power to sway the school's oligarchy into accepting her as one of their own, despite her academic credentials; but that could never be. In a capitalist fairground like the good ole US of A, the dollar ruled supreme, both outwith and inside the gates of even the lowest educational facility. | |
| As above, so below... | |
| Humble, witty, intelligent and possessed of a rare beauty; Shelly was surely the epitome of any man's dream come true. Or would be, were it not for the simple yet inescapable curse of her family lineage. | |
| Elite circles were a place dictated by financial background, not educational. Shelly didn't make the grade. | |
| It broke Jack's heart to see her so consistently victimised over her family's financial standing. She was a strong, proud girl; yet no matter how high she climbed as a student and as a person, she was forever haunted by the taunts and the merciless bullying that her upbringing inspired. | |
| Shelly had no will to join the ranks of what both she and Jack saw as the over-privileged and spiritually undernourished; yet there was no denying the lasting heartbreak and pain that the constant insults and mockery imbued in her. | |
| Jack had experienced a similar path in his own dark journey through the educational grinder, but he was long past personal concern. There was no time for self-pity when the woman he loved needed his compassion. | |
| He would hold this job down. He would work his fingers to the bone and one fine day he would become manager and take over from that damn sadist, Pete. Then he'd rake in some real money, and he'd whisk Shelly away from the lower-east side of LA that was both their home and their prison, and give her a new life – the one she deserved. | |
| First though – he'd deliver these pizzas. Small steps... | |
| A few short hours from now I'll have her hand in mine. I'll tell her of my plans. I'll— | |
| "Hey! Fuck-nut! You actually planning on getting these pizzas out there this decade!?" | |
| Pete – destroyer of reverie and all things sacred. | |
| "Ready when you are, Pete." | |
| "Then have at it, hoss. Don't just stand there all fucking night dreaming of Jeanie. Get your finger out your hole and get moving." | |
| With a sigh, Jack reached for the van keys sat atop the kitchen workspace, winked once non-committedly at his bastard of a boss, and headed for the door. | |
| *** | |
| Outside, a light rain had begun to fall; for a short moment, he stopped to watch raindrops catching the light of the street lamps. The downpour was peppering the evening sky with a translucent light that Jack surmised would make for a wondrous romantic companion to his evening with Shelly. The wonder that the rain inspired in him was short-lived, though, as his eyes were drawn back to terra firma. | |
| The back-of-store where the company van sat was as grim as they came – a trash-littered, foul smelling and dank alleyway that shared its rot and ruin with the two stores to either side of Antonio's – M and J's Costume Parlour and a general store called Nina's that was renowned for selling the cheapest liquor in town. | |
| Tonight, though, the overwhelming smell of rotting meats and cat shit, that so frequently brought home to him the bleak truth of his lot in life, couldn't dampen Jack's spirits. With the rain as his soundtrack and a heart full of hope for what the evening may bring – the usually disheartening reality that the stores rear-end held had lost all its sway. | |
| Jack whistled as he pushed the keys into the driver's door, unlocked it, entered the clammy confines of the van, and settled in for his journey. The night was humid, despite the rains cooling touch, and he removed his jacket, tossing it onto the passenger seat. | |
| The radio was broken, and that was a shame, but Jack had no doubt his thoughts would keep him occupied across the miles. | |
| "Hey! Forrest Gump!? You think maybe taking the fucking Pizza's with you might be a good idea?" Pete – standing by the kitchen doorway with a face like thunder. | |
| Jack sighed, "Sorry, boss. Give me them here." | |
| "It's pissing down! And you're already wet. Come get!" | |
| With a sigh, Jack climbed back out of the vehicle into the rain, and headed for the kitchen. The Pizzas were stacked high on the counter, just as he'd left them. | |
| With a huff and an over-exaggerated roll of his eyes, the manager watched him grapple with the order before stalking off mumbling something under his breath about 'pussy on the brain'. Jack couldn't help but smile. Pete was an asshole, but he was an amusing asshole, despite himself. | |
| Let's get this show on the road, he thought, as he hurried back to the shelter of the van; delivery in hand. Within less than a minute he was set off for the open road, and the fabled Athos House. | |
| As he pulled out of the alleyway and took a left on Primrose Drive, heading for the freeway, he was so lost in his youthful reverie that he failed to spot the tall figure - his face hidden in shadow and masked by the rain - that stood as still as stone, right across the street from the restaurant. | |
| And whose eyes never left Jack as he drove off into the escalating storm. | |
| *** | |
| The lights of lower LA faded in Jack's rear-view mirror like dying stars as the van moved up into the hills, out of the metropolitan district and into the seemingly endless dark of the Californian wild. Slowly, the whore-infested streets, all night off-licence liquor stores and endless parade of grubby bars and restaurants gave way to the majesty of the American night. The moon, round and full in the sky, fought and failed to illuminate the winding country roads; resentful of the storms power to snuff out its splendour. | |
| Jack drove on through the black, unfathomable night. His van was a tiny beacon of light and warmth, amidst a sea of limitless dark. As he left the city and its ever present blanket of smog below, he felt nothing but pure elation. Due to the scarcity of the traffic this far outside L.A, he was making great time and with any luck, he'd be done with the delivery and back in Shelly's arms by 11:30. Things were looking up. | |
| Jack sang quietly to himself as he travelled the long lonely miles through woodlands and fields, all but hidden beneath the now furiously pouring rain and the darkness that carried it to earth. | |
| Soon enough, the rolling hills obscured the city entirely, and the traffic coming from, and going in his direction, dwindled down to nil. He was all alone out here, and Jack was surprised that, despite his optimistic mood, he began to feel the first pangs of apprehension. Not fear, exactly; just a sense of misplacement – a human reaction, as he saw it, to being so cut off from the world he knew. | |
| He'd never driven country roads on his own; certainly not under such circumstances - with no company, no music, and only the lulling thrum of the van's engine in his ears, and the gentle vibration of its wheels under his feet. | |
| He could imagine some very bad things happening out here. The sort of things best not thought of when all alone in the middle of nowhere. Hard as he willed himself to ignore it, the impenetrable dark was beginning to take on a far more sinister façade in his mind. His musing slowly and surely turned to thoughts of murder, blood, death and depravity. | |
| No one would ever find your body out here, if something happened – the thought came unbidden, and Jack laughed with nervous humour at his overactive imagination. | |
| It was very unlike him to give sway to imaginings and scenarios best suited to cheap horror flicks and trashy novels. This road was like any other – safe and secure. | |
| And in the deepest, darkest middle of nowhere, he thought. | |
| Get a hold of yourself, Jack. You're not going to the Overlook or the damned Bates Motel – you're going to deliver some cold, shitty pizza to a rich guy. All is cool. | |
| Still, it didn't feel cool. The night pushed in on the confines of his little oasis of light within the carriage, and his mind crept off into dark corners that seemed all of its own creation. | |
| "I'm absolutely fine." He stated aloud - the tremor he heard in his own voice was as disquieting to him as the act of speaking aloud had been. | |
| Jack took a deep breath, tried to concentrate on the road ahead and on the evening he and Shelly would share when all this was over and he was safely back in the land of the living. | |
| If you make it back at all, his mind persisted. | |
| Ok, the hell with this. | |
| He would call Shelly, just to make a little conversation and shine a little light into his spook-infested mindscape. There was the risk she'd think him overbearing, calling again so soon, but he was willing to take that chance. The thought of her voice soothed him, and anyway, she'd never know he was calling because he was, in actuality, afraid of his own damn shadow. | |
| He reached into his jacket pocket for his Android, felt the solid, smooth metallic casing of the phone, and drew it from his pocket. With nerves increasingly on edge, he pushed the 'on' button. | |
| The familiar lock-screen image of his favourite band, 'KISS', remained absent. The screen stayed dark. | |
| Jack could have sworn he charged the battery before he left for his shift at Antonio's, and since starting work he'd only made the one call – the call to Shelly – and that had lasted only minutes. | |
| Sighing with frustration, he pulled over to the side of the road and killed the engine. The night became deathly silent as he quickly flicked on the mirror-lamp, filling the vans interior with a soft, muted light and chasing away the blackness that so daunted him. | |
| Jesus, it's so quiet out here, he thought, with horrid fascination. | |
| Jack peered out the window into the solid, seemingly living darkness, and quickly averted his eyes. He'd been deathly afraid of the dark when he was a child, and thought himself a razors edge away from succumbing to the same fear that had haunted his childhood footsteps. | |
| Let's just find out what's wrong with the phone and get the hell out of here, he told himself. | |
| He looked down at his mobile. No cracks in the screen betraying any physical trauma that might have taken place. No tell-tale water damage that was notorious for killing these things. No nothing. | |
| Without thinking, he flipped the phone over and pried open its back casing; the plastic popping off easily in his hand. It took him a few seconds to grasp what he was seeing. | |
| He was right - the battery hadn't ran out. | |
| The battery wasn't there. | |
| Someone had removed it. | |
| Without thinking, Jack peered out at the darkened woods that engulfed him and felt a chill run down his spine – paranoia and dread seeping slowly yet inexorably into his psyche as he replayed the night's events. In his mind's eye, the woods out there were filled with renewed horrors - watchful eyes, demonic intent and murderous hearts. | |
| Think this thing through, Jack. He allowed himself to travel back to the events of the evening. | |
| Okay, he ruminated, I called Shelly, we had a chat, and the next thing I know Pete was hollering in my ear about this damn delivery... | |
| What next? | |
| I grabbed the delivery, took it to the van. | |
| Think! When could someone have done this? I had my phone on me all the time, except... | |
| Except when I forgot the Pizza's and left my jacket in the van. | |
| Oh shit... | |
| Someone must have gotten to his phone in the time that it took him to return to the kitchen, grab the delivery and haul his butt back to the van. That was what – a minute or two at most? But who would have taken his battery, and why? There was no one else in the restaurant other than himself, Pete and their chef, David, and Jack hadn't seen a single soul prowling the alley. Not even one of the bums that often frequented the garbage bins looking for scraps. | |
| This was too weird. Had someone been spying on him? Watching his every move and waiting for a chance to get into his jacket and steal his battery. It just didn't seem feasible. Surely a thief would steal the phone itself, battery and all – why had they left the phone? | |
| Unless the mysterious thief wanted him to believe his phone was safe and secure. | |
| Unless they wanted him out here – alone and with no way to reach anyone back home. | |
| No, he thought, that's crazy. Why would anyone want to hurt me? It's got to be a joke. Probably one of the usual assholes from school doing their best to make my every living moment a misery. Only now they're taking their game outside the confines of the classroom. | |
| Had to happen eventually, he mused, the evolution of bullying. | |
| As badly as he wanted to believe this explanation, he just couldn't. | |
| Taking a deep breath, he replaced the phones plastic outer casing, shoved it into his pocket, and was just about to start the engine and get the hell out of dodge, when through his rear-view mirror, he caught movement coming from the road he'd just travelled. | |
| Not movement, exactly – but the very distinctive play of light that could only be headlight beams, moving through the trees. | |
| There were shards of light passing through the dense woodland, cutting swathes of illumination in the pitch back forest. As the light danced and glimmered amidst the trees, Jack heard the first low rumbling of an engine. | |
| A car was coming around the bend. It would be on him in no more than a minute. | |
| His heart hammered in his chest, and for the first time in his adult life, Jack tumbled into submission and felt the vice-like grip of real terror enclose around his being. | |
| Something was very wrong here. He could feel it. An indescribable dread that was every bit as convincing and palpable as any feeling he'd ever experienced. Call it instinct, call it cowardice; hell, call it good old fashioned paranoid delusion, but this whole situation felt terribly wrong. | |
| With shaking hands, he reached down and started the ignition, never taking his eyes off the rear-view mirror. And now the vehicle was rolling over the hill not fifty yards behind him. He could make out the silhouette of a car; large by the looks of it. He figured it was perhaps a Cadillac. | |
| Or a hearse. | |
| He wasn't going to hang around to find out. | |
| As the headlights of the oncoming vehicle lit up the interior of the vans rear, and the hum of its engine became eclipsed by the pounding of his heart, Jack started his own vehicle and pulled out of there as fast as possible. | |
| *** | |
| The miles rolled on in a kind of nightmarish unreality that was all their own - free of time and of logic - as Jack's fears overtook him while the mysterious vehicle that followed stayed close behind. | |
| The rational part of his mind rebelled against his darker musings, and he tried as hard as he could to grab onto that precious fraction of his thinking; but no matter how hard he tried, the car behind him had become a canvas on which his fears would paint themselves in vivid detail - fears that Jack had thought were the sole domain of children; those of hidden evils - bogeymen, hungry monsters under the bed, and demons in the closet just waiting to whisk you away to a bloody and terrifying oblivion. | |
| His inherent rationality was quick to retort that these were the musings of an overactive imagination; but real threat or not, it was freaking him out...badly. | |
| Sure, he mused, it could be a stranger making their way home through the dark with nothing on their mind but supper and a glass of red wine. It could even be some of the bastard jocks from school, making good of the situation to inject some more misery into my life. It's not like they haven't made a mildly successful career out of tormenting me whenever the opportunity arises. But it's not. It's a man in a plain white mask, or worse...a clown mask! He's got a hatchet the size of my arm sat in the passenger seat and he can't wait to carve himself a slice of Jack Francis; maybe take me home and feed me to his rabid dogs. | |
| For Jack, the car and its unseen driver had taken on the dimensions of a nightmare. | |
| The night seemed to stretch on endlessly, and Jack glanced at his watch – he was almost at the turnoff for Athos House, and in his mind he could imagine nothing more welcoming than the safe glow of its lights and the sight of other human beings in a normal environment. He pushed the van to its capacity; never taking his eyes off of the vehicle in his rear mirror for more than a few seconds at a time. | |
| Not far now, Jack. You're almost there – sanctuary... | |
| A few minutes passed, feeling much longer than they had any right to, and then, there it was, like a lighthouse in an ocean storm – the sign by the side of the road was lit by a small overhead lamp and the sign read - in the most eloquent and classy looking font he'd ever seen – 'Athos House.' | |
| And below that – 'Turn Right.' | |
| He'd made it. After what felt like an eternity in the faceless, featureless dark, he'd reached his destination. | |
| The turn-off was signalled by a streetlamp that appeared to be Victorian in design; two pearl-like bulbs pulsed light from within identical floral glass covering that, even in passing, were clearly boasting of exquisite attention to detail. In the middle of all this emptiness, it looked incredibly surreal, but it was water in the desert for Jack. | |
| He slowed, turned onto the narrow driveway that cut through the dense woodland, and began the drive towards the house. | |
| Taking a deep breathe, he once again searched the mirror for his quarry. His heart drummed in his chest as the dark car approached the turn-off. Time slowed to a maddening crawl, and he could feel his testicles shrivel as though attempting to crawl back inside his body. | |
| The car kept going. | |
| The mysterious vehicle onto which he had projected so much doubt and fear simply bypassed the turnoff, and continued on its way until all its luminance was swallowed at last by the ancient redwoods. | |
| Catching his own reflection, Jack was surprised to find he was grinning. | |
| All that worrying for nothing, Jack laughed aloud, if Shelly could see you now she might not be so quick to invite you round for a horror movie marathon, Jack – she'd probably be scared you'd wet yourself or have yourself a nervous breakdown. | |
| He drove on, pushing his way through the woods at a much more sedate pace now; his heart slowing in time with his vehicle, and after perhaps five or so minutes of pensive driving on the somewhat treacherous one-lane road, the trees opened up into a large clearing. At last the moonlight was finally winning its battle with the storm, and its cold blue radiance reflected off a beautiful lake that covered most of the open space. Atop a hill overlooking the lake stood the most beautiful house he had ever laid eyes on. An enormous gothic marvel whose countless lighted windows beckoned Jack onwards, with welcoming warmth and the promise of safety from the terrors of the American night. | |
| Athos House. | |
| *** | |
| The jet-black Cadillac pulled over by the side of the road, and came to a slow stop under the massive branches of a redwood. Its lights shut off. And from its pitch black interior, the tiny flame of a gas lighter cast dancing shadows on the face of the driver. He lit a Marlboro, and took a long, luxurious draw; savouring the taste. | |
| He peered out into the gloom, watched as the beams of light that shone from the boy's van passed over a hillock, where they became lost from view. | |
| Exhaling with something approaching blissful satisfaction, he reached into the pocket of his over coat, removed his phone, and began to dial. | |
| A voice answered on the first ring. | |
| "Yes?" The voice asked, totally devoid of any recognisable emotion. | |
| "He's on his way. You'll have him within ten minutes." | |
| With nothing more said, the line went dead. The man took another long drag on his cigarette, leaned back, and closed his eyes. | |
| *** | |
| Jack had to tilt his head back to look into the man's eyes. | |
| He's more a giant than a man. Where did they find this guy? The circus!? | |
| The huge wooden door had been ominous enough, with its oversized wolfs-head knocker that seemed to leer at him, teeth bared as though ready to pounce, but the gargantuan figure that pulled the door open immediately after his first knock of the brass monstrosity was simply terrifying. Jack was met with the towering silhouette of a man who would look more at home waiting under bridges for unsuspecting goats than welcoming guests into the opulent manor that climbed into the night before him. The man was enormous. | |
| With no small effort, he locked eyes with the monstrous doorman and somehow found the voice to stammer, "I'm here with the delivery for Mr Athos." | |
| "Come right in, sir." Replied the human tower. He had a strong French accent, and coupled with the surprisingly high pitch of his voice, his manner stood in stark contrast to his daunting physical stature. He would assume a man of this height and weight – Jack figured he stood at least six and a half feet tall, and he was built like a pro-footballer – would have a vocal tenor to rival Darth Vader, but this guy sounded almost effeminate. This night was becoming more and more surreal as it went on. To exacerbate the fearful yet ridiculous impression the giant doorman invited, he was adorned in a razor straight black waistcoat, pressed black trousers and a white shirt; the whole outfit was topped off with a bowtie. | |
| Is this guy the Athos families' butler? Jack wondered, bemused. Not the most welcoming gentleman to greet your guests. His expression was that of unmovable granite, and his height would instil apprehension in any man, at the very least until he opened his mouth. | |
| Jack was reminded of an old movie he and Shelly had watched a few years back one winter evening. Shelly's dad had a huge collection of horror films, and she put them to good use as often as she could.. A night over at Shells place meant cheese-flavoured popcorn, Kool-Aid and a spooky movie. Jack always cherished the predictability of the thing. There was something comforting about the repetition. | |
| The movie that this massive butler brought to his mind was a very, very old one. He couldn't remember the name off-hand but it had starred Boris Karloff – one of Shelly's favourite actors – and was set in an old dark house. Karloff played the butler and supplied a huge portion of the films frights. He was nowhere near as frightening as this butler. | |
| With a wave of his arm, the giant welcomed Jack across the threshold, and finally, he was there; Athos House. His nightmarish freak-out on the back-roads was all but forgotten as the warmth and light of the house filled his senses and as he set his eyes on the mansions great hall – it was magnificent. | |
| This whole night, from the very first moment that he'd been dealt this crummy hand and forced to drive out on his date night to some far off residence, had been strange and often disquieting; now though, as Jack stood underneath an enormous crystal chandelier that glittered like a thousand stars in the sky, and took in the halls exquisitely hewed marble staircase, he felt truly to be the butt of some cosmic joke. This was the kind of home that Jack had only ever seen in the movies; a James Bond film or maybe one of Shelly's Cary Grant starrers. For a trailer trash boy to be stood within the walls of such a majestic house had a pungent air of unreality about it. Not to mention that he was stood here with the incredible hulk, (sans voice), and seven assorted Pizza's barely fit for consumption, stacked in his arms. | |
| Why would people who live in a place like this want Pizza? He marvelled. Was this a case of the rich 'slumming it' trying to find a connection with the common man who dwelt so far below them on the social and economic ladder? Or were they 'new money'; still stuck in the mire of cheap living and garish tastes? | |
| The house's breath-taking décor seemed to nullify that theory. | |
| Maybe they're stoned? He smiled. | |
| "Wait here. I'll take those." - Godzilla making contact. | |
| Jack handed him the tower of fast food. In his hands, the mammoth order of not-so-fine cuisine looked like a starter, "Um, sure thing. I'll just hang out here then." | |
| Without another word, his new friend staked off with a noticeable lack of grace, and left Jack standing alone amidst the vastness of the house's great hall. | |
| It was going on ten minutes of very awkward, very uncomfortable floor pacing when from the top of the shining staircase came a jovial, brusque voice. | |
| "Welcome to my home, son. I can't thank you enough for the delivery" Said Benjamin Athos, with no small amount of mirth. | |
| *** | |
| Benjamin Athos stood in stark contrast to his taste in butlers. He was a small, almost unassuming man whose girth gave away a taste for the finer things, and whose glowing complexion perhaps betrayed a little too much love for the liquor. Only the finery of his garb betrayed what must amount to a vast, unimaginable wealth. Jack estimated the man's age to be somewhere around his early sixties; his long flowing grey hair and peppered beard gave him the air of a hippy gone good, or gone to ruin, depending on the perspective. In his left hand he held a long, delicate hand-carved wooden pipe that glowed softly from the tobacco within. His right hand, he extended to Jack, backed up with a smile as warm and friendly as that of everyone's favourite grandparent. | |
| "Again, it's a pleasure to have you here, um...?" | |
| "Jack, sir. My name is Jack." | |
| "Jack! A good strong name. It's a pleasure to have you here, Jack, and thank you so much for coming all this way with our food. We've been waiting very patiently for you." | |
| "Um, no problem." Jack replied in kind "Thank you for having me, Mr Athos" it sounded like a question. | |
| Benjamin laughed "There's no need to be nervous, my boy. My dear wife is always telling me my somewhat overzealous manner can be quite daunting; says it gives me the air of being somewhat manic." | |
| Jack smiled and nodded, wondering where this was going. | |
| "I assure you, I'm perfectly sane, and I'm on no medication whatsoever, which is a fact not many men of my age can boast of. I do, however, love my food, and I tend to get a bit giddy when dinner time comes around." | |
| Not knowing how to react to this strange man, Jack merely smiled, nodded and said, "Yeah, I get the same way round about happy hour." | |
| At this, Benjamin let out a roar of laughter, wholly undeserving of his lame joke, and slapped him on the arm in a manner that was surely meant as one of camaraderie, but only succeeded in startling Jack and causing him to flinch. | |
| "Come boy, your perplexity is showing!" he bellowed. | |
| Jack willed himself to loosen up "Sorry, sir." | |
| "Call me Benjamin." | |
| "Sorry Benjamin. I don't mean to be unsociable or unprofessional; it's just that I've never been in a place like this before, or, if you don't mind me saying so, met a man like you before." | |
| Benjamin raised his eyebrows in mock shock " A man like me?" | |
| "Yes, sir – Ben – by that I mean a man of social standing. Where I come from, we don't see very many, you know..." Jack stuttered. | |
| "Go on boy, you can say it...Rich men." He smiled as he emphasised the word 'Rich'. The man was clearly enjoying Jack's unease – whether in good nature or with malice, Jack couldn't tell. The man was just too hard to get a bead on. | |
| Benjamin went on "I wasn't always rich you know – I came from a very poor family. I was raised just outside Detroit in a humble little town called Elliston. Growing up I had, how do you say, 'Not a pot to piss in'!!!" | |
| More of that bellowing laughter poured forth from the man; filling the entire hall - every bit as grand and over-egged, as the surroundings in which it echoed. | |
| He continued, "No...I came into my fortune later in life. I won't bore you wit the circumstances through which I find myself stood here today in this magnificent home." | |
| Genuinely fascinated by this strange man; Jack urged him on. "It is a beautiful home you have here." | |
| "Thank you, my boy. Thank you. And you, Jack." Benjamin put his arm over Jack's shoulder in a gesture that felt entirely disarming and not a little too friendly. "Walk with me." | |
| With that, Jack let Benjamin lead him deeper into the home. They turned right at the foot of the main stairway, and carried on down a hall adorned with oil canvasses; each individual work of art illuminated by its own overhead light fixture. The paintings stared back at Jack as he took them in one by one. The hall seemed endless, and Jack found himself wondering just exactly where the homeowner was leading him. He was just about to ask that very thing when Athos beat him to the punch with a question of his own. Or was it a statement? | |
| "You come from less privileged means also, I understand." | |
| How could he know that?, thought Jack. Oh wait, I'm a Pizza delivery guy; of course I'm poor. | |
| "I do." He replied. He hoped the man hadn't noticed the reddening of his flushed face – a symptom of the ingrained shame that had been his unwelcome companion his whole life. | |
| Struggling to lighten the subject, Jack mused, in a tone more cheerful than he felt inside, "Maybe one day I can be as successful as you, Ben. You escaped from your circumstances; there's hope for us all, I guess." | |
| Benjamin patted him on the back like they were old friends, "Oh, there's hope all right. Not for you, perhaps but for the select few who are willing to take the extra step to attain their dreams." | |
| Jack found himself somewhat surprised by the man's casual dismissal of his future. He turned to face Benjamin, slipping out from under the man's arms as he did so. | |
| "I feel I have as much a chance as any, Sir. I work hard, and I have good grades." Jack felt emboldened by his small rebellion against the rich man's response to his ambition. He'd heard the same thing a thousand times from a hundred different teachers, and had never piped up before, and it was a strange and welcome change of tact for him. And anyway, why was he stood here defending himself before this gentleman? | |
| "Oh, I don't mean to offend, Jack. I'm sure you're a model student, and a young man of lofty ambitions. I merely meant that to climb the ladder of commerce all the way to the top, one requires a certain - shall we say - coldness of the heart." | |
| A sliver of apprehension crawled slowly up Jack's spine, as Benjamin continued; his initially cheerful manner growing steadily more serious. "Take our circumstances tonight, for example. Here you are, all the way out here, many miles from home, and the embrace of the girl you love..." | |
| "How did you know about -" Jack asked. | |
| Benjamin stopped walking. It was fleeting, but Jack could have sworn a smile touched the small man's face that felt....malicious. | |
| "It's my job to know these things, son. And I do my job well. You have a girlfriend, and she is waiting for you back home, sat all alone in her trailer, with a whole slew of tasteless horror movies at hand – yet here you are, spoiling your chances to win her affections in order to earn a minimum wage, and all for a boss who couldn't care less whether you live or you die, no doubt." | |
| Jack was taken aback. His mind felt detached from the situation unfolding. Who is this man? How does he know these things about me? And why? | |
| The car, Jack thought, his skin crawling, the phone! | |
| You were being followed! | |
| He took a few steps back from the elderly gentleman, sensing an unspoken threat. Yes - there was a definite darkness to the man's smile now. He looked more like a wolf waiting to pounce that the jovial old aristocrat that had come before. | |
| I have to get out of here. Right now – Jack mustered up his best smile. Inexpiably intent on maintaining the charade that both now knew they were playing. | |
| "Sir, I'd like to go now. You have a lovely home, but I really must be getting back." | |
| Benjamin ignored him. "Why do you think you're here, Jack? Do you really think you came all this way to deliver Pizza Pies??" Benjamin spat the words out with unmistakable disgust. | |
| "Sir, I don't know what's going on here but I'm leaving." | |
| Benjamin stepped toward him, and Jack once again backed off from this much smaller, weaker man. Malice was now sliding off him in waves. Despite Jack's superior strength and size, he was dangerously close to panic. | |
| "Do you really think I would allow my guests to feast on something as vulgar as that slop you brought with you?" He was grinning now – a shark confidently circling its prey. "No, no - my guests expect far finer cuisine from their host, you stupid little cunt." | |
| Jack had almost no time to react to the insult. He had, however, just enough time to see a shadow loom over Benjamin's face and see the smaller look over his shoulder and up – he saw nothing more before he felt an almighty 'crack' across the back of his skull, and all went black. | |
| *** | |
| Jack's world was red. He could vaguely presume a confusion of silhouettes' through the dark red blur that was his vision – silhouette's that sometimes resembled human forms, and sometimes not. He could hear voices; at first they were little more than echoes – half heard whispers that seemed to emanate from far, far away – but as his senses slowly returned to him, and the voices grew closer, he found that he could discern certain words, although all the varying cadences co-mingled to form one cacophony in his fractured mind. And there was laughter - merriment of the sort one would expect at a New Year Shindig, or maybe a wedding. Wherever he was and whoever these people were, they were having a damn good time. | |
| As Jack's consciousness slowly surfaced from the timeless murk that had been its sanctuary, the pain hit. | |
| Blinding, pounding pain. He felt like his head had been trapped in a vice and had been slowly squeezed till it almost cracked. His skull felt a hundred pounds heavier than it should have, and when he tried to raise his head he found it all but impossible. | |
| Where was he? What happened? Jack's tempered mind grasped at memory, as he pried into the evening events in a desperate scramble for the truth. He remembered calling Shelly. He remembered the long, creepy drive through the Californian countryside, and he remembered— | |
| Jack's memories washed over him like a wave that threatened to drown him. He'd been assaulted at the hands of someone while talking to the house owner. Probably by that behemoth of a man that answered the door. Who was it again? The butler? | |
| Oh dear God, I'm in real trouble here. | |
| Again, Jack tried to lift his head with only a modicum more success than last time. Whatever had struck him had really done some damage. He vaguely worried that he may have concussion, before the seriousness of his circumstance relocated such matters to the 'not-exactly-your-main-concern' compartment of his mind. | |
| And was the laughter dying down? Yes. He was sure it was. The cell, or wherever it was he'd been taken to, was quickly filled with a hushed silence that somehow was far more terrifying than the gaiety that came before. He heard people shushing others. Heard glasses clinking on tables, and the intake of breath from somewhere close to his right - or was it his left – his head was still so muddled he could barely discern the difference. | |
| "Quiet down everyone. There we are. Our guest is waking up." | |
| It was a man's voice. Unmistakably that of the stately proprietor - and architect of his captivity – Benjamin Athos. | |
| "Ruth, darling, could you please wipe his face down? The poor boy must be very much visually impaired behind all that blood." | |
| So that's why his world was a terrible deep red – blood from the wound he'd sustained must have run into his eyes, all but blinding him. Next he felt soft hands gently lift his head, and then the ice cold sting of fresh water as someone dabbed at his face with what felt like a cloth. He clenched his eyes shut, and fought to hold back a scream as the person propping up his head ran their hands over whatever wound had been dealt him back there. | |
| "There now, Mary. Be as gentle as you can. Let Ruth do her work. We don't want his pain to begin just yet." - Benjamin again. | |
| Just yet!? Jack's stomach turned at the words. | |
| A girl – presumably Ruth - said, "All done, sir." And suddenly the iciness of the water was replaced with the familiar warmth of cloth. He felt no comfort, as he struggled at last to open his eyes. Jack had a feeling he may have fared far better remaining in the dark. He had to see, though. He had to know. | |
| Slowly, and with great effort, Jack opened his eyes to their fullest, and as the previous blurriness receded, he fought to gather his senses and perceive his surroundings. | |
| The first thing he saw was light. All encompassing; it burned into his eyes and he felt the headache that had been throttling his senses intensify. He peered into the white glare, and realising what he was seeing, his confusion elevated. He was looking at a chandelier, head on. Its radiance seemed to burn into his very being. He was laid flat on his back looking up at an intricately crafted display of lights that looked as far off as stars. | |
| "You must have struck the poor boy harder than we first assumed, Patrick. " Athos cleared his throat as though mildly embarrassed. "Look to your side, son." | |
| Jack followed the sound of the voice, and came face to face with Athos. The man was grinning. Sat to his left was a woman of such beauty that under other circumstances Jack would have deemed a heavenly vision. Here and now, though, there was nothing angelic about her appearance, her smile held no warmth, and he found himself repelled by its chill. | |
| Jack drew his gaze from the dead-eyed beauty and back to his captor; looking for some explanation as fear coursed through his veins like liquid nitrogen. He was dimly aware of violins playing. The music was sad and despairing – a requiem of some sort. He fought to peer beyond Benjamin and could make out a quartet of musicians sat in a circle by the far side of the hall, poised and fixed in their concentration. Two women and two men. The women were topless; their firm breasts jutted out above their instruments, jiggling as they teased the sad melodies from the strings. Behind them towered four enormous windows boasting stain-glass illustrations. Jack's heart thundered as he took in the illustrations. Depictions of degradation and carnality the likes of which he'd never seen before seemed to leer back at him, mocking his sense of purity. One window showed two men suckling on young girls breasts as two more men squeezed their penises into her empty eye sockets. She appeared to be in a state of ecstasy. Another showed two men masturbating over what appeared to be a severed head, and yet another depicted some form of sexual torture as a naked, screaming man was impaled anally by what looked to be a serrated spear. The borders of all four looming windows were adorned with a host of such images, and Jack's stomach twisted at the sight of them. Outside, the thunder roared and the rain lashed the windows like a thousand tears. | |
| Looking back at Benjamin, Jack attempted to speak but found the words wouldn't come. | |
| "Don't try to speak, Jack. You'll find it quite impossible. Patrick has administered a little something to keep you quiet. You'll also find that it pointless to try to move from the neck down. Don't worry though; you're not paralysed. As I'm sure you're aware from my somewhat overzealous butler's 'administrations', you can still feel pain. We prefer it that way – it's not necessary that we bear witness to your pleas, or to your screams. Only that you feel such pain as would make you scream." | |
| Laughter poured from all around him – Male and female – adult and child. | |
| "Can you see better now, son? Yes?" | |
| Jack could only stare into the man's eyes, pleading as best he could for mercy, and finding absolutely none. | |
| "Now that you have a feel for your surroundings, and I do hope you're impressed by my home, perhaps you could be so courteous as to greet our guests in full." | |
| Jack lifted his broken head from the table where he lay, feeling the dried blood that caked the back of his skull peel away from the wood. He looked down towards his feet. He was startled to find that he was completely naked, and had been shaved of all hair. Even more terrifying were the twenty or more individuals he found staring back at him from all directions. How had he missed them all? They were dressed in the finest clothing - diamonds sparkled around swan-like necks, affluent looking gentlemen smiled at him as they supped on wines of varying hues. To his left, a little boy and girl, dressed every bit as extravagantly as the adults, sat between a young man and woman, intently sipping a clear liquid from glasses that looked to be made by the finest craftsmen. He turned his head to his right, where sat yet another small boy, adorned in a clean white shirt and a bowtie. The boy's face was cold as stone, making an obscenity of what should have been youthful verve. He stared intently as Jack, and as he toyed with his cutlery a portly lady to his side slapped his palm gently, admonishing him. She looked to Jack as she did so and smiled apologetically as though ashamed of the child's manners. | |
| All eyes were on him, and the air hung heavy with tension. He allowed his gaze to search lower, and found himself to be surrounded by a feast of fine cuisine. There were sauces and steam-cooked vegetables and every kind of dessert imaginable. Wine bottles, full and empty, peppered the display. He was lay atop a massive dining table, and the table was at full capacity. | |
| Oh dear sweet God, help me. What is this?! | |
| Was this some sick game? What the hell was wrong with these people? The cavalcade of smiling faces filled Jack with horror. Yet like a deer trapped in the headlights of an oncoming eighteen wheeler, he found he could not look away. His eyes darted from leering face to leering face, taking them all in, sensing in them an unspeakable frenzy. It was only when Athos spoke again that the awful spell was broken. | |
| "Bring in Shelly!" the man cheerfully announced. | |
| *** | |
| On please no! This can't be happening! How did they get to her!? Confusion and terror pressed in on Jack from all sides. He felt vomit rise in his throat and fought to keep it down, knowing it would most likely drown him. | |
| Again, he raised his bloodied head, shivering in terror at what would come next, and he saw her. | |
| She was stood at the head of the table, her smooth skin glowing in the light from above. She was completely naked; her long red hair flowed around her small, firm breasts. Her nipples appeared rock hard. Jack tried to look into her eyes, but was disgusted to find himself drawn to the smooth, bald cleft between her legs. A faint line of moisture ran down her inner thigh, betraying her excitement. | |
| He pulled his gaze from her sex, and looked into her eyes. He was shocked to find there was no fear there – instead a certain determination lit her eyes, and as Jack looked deep into them he saw unmistakable sympathy, and was it – love? | |
| "I'm so sorry it has to be this way, Jack." Shelly said. | |
| She's a part of this! He could feel his sanity beginning to crumble as she stepped towards the table, smiling. | |
| Jack could feel hot tears streaming down his face as Shelly drew closer and climbed slowly and seductively onto the table. The guests drank in her naked form with unbridled lust as she began to crawl towards him on all fours with her breasts swinging gently as she crawled between the foods; never taking her eyes off his. Her gaze bore into his with unfettered hunger. | |
| Shelly made her way carefully across the table, her penetrating gaze fixed solely on Jack. Soon she was positioned above his cock, and lowering her head down onto him, while holding eye contact. Jack felt a sickening rush of sheer pleasure as her warm, wet lips enveloped him and she took his whole length into her slick, tight mouth. He was disgusted to find that he was rock hard, but not surprised. This was the girl he had loved his whole life. And now she was raping him. He felt his cock throb as she slowly lowered and raised her head around him, hungrily sucking him as she stroked his length with her tongue. He was close to climaxing when she finally, mercifully lifted her head and let his stiff member slip from her mouth. | |
| Under any other circumstances, it would have been delicious when Shelly licked her lips, tasting what had to be his pre-cum; but right now it was as close to pure horror as Jack had ever been. Still though, his cock jutted up between his legs; demanding attention – craving her. | |
| Next she was above him. He could feel the hard tips of her nipples brush against his naked chest; the soft warmth of her thighs pressing against his. Her hand wrapped around his swollen shaft, and she slowly guided his cock into her wet centre. Jack felt himself immediately close to exploding as she lowered herself down all the way onto him. Her slick walls squeezed his cock, milking him. | |
| Jack was barely aware when Athos began speaking, in awed and hushed tones. "It is a vital part of the practice that the girl vying for membership into our club loves the victim she procures, and that he is of impoverished means. It is only by these means that he or she can attain enlightenment, and rise above the mire of mere existence." | |
| Victim – In the throes of Jack's passion, the word barely registered. Despite the nightmarish scene he found himself embroiled in, his whole world was temporarily one of lust, and heat, and flesh. Shelly was moaning now, close to her own devastating orgasm. He could feel her walls closings tighter around his rod. His own orgasm was drawing near - unstoppable. | |
| Unheeded by his captives lack of response to what he had to say, Athos went on, lost in something close to reverie. | |
| "Yes" he whispered, "for the female initiate, the ritual demands that she take into her virgin womb the semen of the first man she will dine on..." | |
| Jack's mind flipped on him as Athos' last sentence sank in. Shelly screamed as she came, and in that moment Jack's unbidden terror met with pure ecstasy as he found his own release, pumping his seed deep into the girl he loved – his rapist. | |
| The first man she will dine on. | |
| As horror overrode Jack's ecstasy, he fought with his every fibre to move his arms, his legs – anything - but he was as helpless as a cripple in the hands of these psychopaths. He barely had time to process the fear that coursed through his veins before Shelly was lifting herself off his still swollen shaft. | |
| And reaching across the table for a carving knife... | |
| Jack's heartbeat thundered in his skull like a tribal drum as he watched in horror, while Shelly placed the steel blade against the base of his still throbbing shaft. He could feel the coolness of the knife edge as it came into contact with his cum-slick manhood. Shelly made sure to place the blade against the most prominent vein, and the knife visibly shifted in rhythm with the blood coursing through his cock. | |
| He whipped his head from side to side, heedless now of the pain in his head, pleading with his eyes as best he could to all in the room to save him from the terrible thing his girlfriend was set to do. | |
| All he saw in return were smiles. | |
| And hunger. | |
| Some of the diners were salivating like wild dogs. | |
| Oh God please help me! Help me! – Jack looked back desperately at the girl he had trusted his whole life, and saw the tears running down her face as she steeled herself for what she was about to do. | |
| Please, Shelly! Don't do this to me! Please! | |
| Then Shelly began to saw at him. | |
| Within moments her beautiful face was awash in thick red splashes of blood and she fought to cut through the meat and gristle. Her teeth shone white in a mask of red as she sawed at him and, changing tact, began pulling hard on his now half severed shaft as she tried to tear it from his body. Failing in this, she resumed cutting, slicing deeper into his flesh with every sawing motion until only a stretched and bloodied flap of skin tethered his cock to his body. With one final pull, she ripped the meat from him, leaving only a red pumping stump. | |
| During all this, Jack couldn't scream out loud, but in the fracturing, plummeting abyss that was his mind - he screamed plenty. | |
| The pain was incredible. He could feel something tear in his throat as he fought to scream out in his torment. Warm blood spluttered from his mouth into the giant man's face. The man nonchalantly wiped it away and stepped back from Jack, grinning. | |
| It felt like his genital region had been set aflame, and with more courage than he ever hoped he could muster, Jack peered down at the devastation where his penis had been. | |
| Nothing remained of his manhood but a small and ragged stump; little more than a dark red mess of loose skin and soft meat. Blood still slowly and rhythmically bubbled from the remains of the veins that Shelly had inexpertly severed. Jack could feel his sanity crumbling at the sight, and silently prayed for his mind to release him once from this hell, permanently. | |
| As Shelly crawled from the table, Jack's gaze darted around the room at the people who had witnessed this atrocity. Many were spattered with his blood; their perfectly tailored suits and dresses spotted with the spray that had been unleashed by Shelly's feverish cutting. A man was licking his blood from the soft curve of a woman's neck, just as gentle as a lover ever could. A little girl was laughing as she smeared blood onto her giggling guardians face. | |
| And now at the end of the table sat Shelly - poetry student and horror movie geek – still naked, and painted darkest red. | |
| She was chewing on raw meat; gore running down her chin as she fought to break through the gristle with her teeth. Her eyes never left Jack's as she determinedly swallowed something bloodied and purple. | |
| When she was done grinding and gulped the half chewed meat down, there came a clinking of glasses, and Benjamin Athos began to speak; his voice clear and ringing in Jack's ears. | |
| "Shelly Pendle has partaken of the forbidden flesh of her love. She has proven herself wilful, merciless, driven by greed and in all ways a perfectly splendid guest. She will make a valuable member to our society." | |
| Jack drowned in unending waves of pain as he watched the man raise his glass to the room. "To Shelly – our newest member!" he proclaimed. | |
| In unison the room erupted with the voices of the diners. "TO SHELLY!" they cheered as one. | |
| "Now let the feasting begin!" | |
| The guests all arose, and in unison they reached for their cutlery. As one they moved forward and began to casually carve slices from Jack's trembling, tortured flesh. Though he couldn't move or make a sound, Jack felt every agonising cut and every slice as the hungry guests dug into their meal. | |
| Two elderly women cut off his fingers with a cleaving knife, and still he was aware. | |
| A young couple laughed as they split open his stomach and felt around inside him for their desired morsels - his mind held fast. | |
| A teenage boy dug into the hole where his cock had been, playing with the wound as though Jack was a mere biology project - he felt every endless exploration as they kid pried deeper. | |
| And as a fork pierced his sack and his testicles were pulled from his body, still he remained hellishly aware. | |
| By the time Jack's eyeballs were being scooped from his head with a dessert spoon, insanity had yet to claim him. His mind endured. | |
| And the feast lasted a long, long time. | |
| *** | |
| She lay on the floor in an exhausted heap; streams of warm blood running down her thighs from her vagina and her anus. | |
| They had used her hard. She would hurt for weeks. | |
| She got onto her bruised knees and wiped the semen from her eyes. It covered her face, her hair and her breasts. She had just enough time to breathe before yet another man pushed his pulsing cock into her cum-slicked mouth and released a hot jet into her throat as he roughly pulled her head onto his massive member. | |
| Dutifully, she swallowed his load and let out a sigh. He was the last of the group. The celebration was over. | |
| Athos stood over her; his blood-smeared cock dangling half-erect between his legs. Sweat rolled over his fat, naked form and dripped onto the fine Persian rug beneath them to mingle with the semen, piss and blood already lathered there. He offered a hand to her, and she took it willingly, rising at his behest. She stood before him on shaking legs. The dining room fell quiet as the mass of sweating, exhausted guests gave her their full attention. The stench of sex and death hung heavy in the air. Outside the wind screamed and the lightning set the night sky on fire. | |
| "Welcome Shelly. The celebration is over. All you ever wanted will be yours for you and your family to enjoy forever." He gently clasped her cum-slick face in his hands and looked her directly in the eyes. She saw the truth of his words within them. | |
| "You're one of us now, dear. And you must never forget...This world belongs to us. They are merely here to satiate our needs. Makes sure our cars run smoothly. Clean our posteriors. Fight our wars. They are cattle. They are worthless. They serve only to suffer and die in the service of satiating our hunger; both physical and financial. It's been this way for centuries and so it shall remain - The rich will always feed off the poor." | |
| The throng of naked revellers cheered their host, as the room echoed with their unbound jubilance - "The rich will always feed!" they roared. | |
| Shelly was already feeling hungry again. | |
| ⁂ | |
| [ SHOPPING ] | |
| The cave was littered with bones. | |
| Fleshless skulls of all sizes, some intact and some fragmented, rested against its cold stone walls. He would have to think about cleaning this mess up soon. It was getting to be too much. | |
| Roland sat cross legged on the hard ground, gnawing on what was the last of his winter supply. He usually never ate the flesh around the foot, finding the meat of the sole far too tough for his tastes. It was nothing like the tender flesh of an inner thigh, or a well-cooked buttock, but it was all he had. He was simple, but he was smart enough to know this was no way to live. | |
| This was how Roland had been living, though, for far too long - hand to mouth, or foot to mouth, he mused with no small amount of disgust - for the last few weeks. The hills had been empty of wanderers for too long to rightly remember. Sure, there were always slow patches before the bad times had come, and even during the good times, when the land surrounding his well hidden den was jam-packed with tourists of all shape, color and taste, he and his family still had to be very, very wary. | |
| Mother had taught him, "Never gather more meat than you require, or less than you can live with". He still didn't fully understand quite what she was talking about. Though in his own slow drifting way, he thought he was starting to grasp the situation. The smell of rot polluting the air he breathed, and brought the lesson home in a most unwelcome fashion. | |
| He'd lived in these hills for as long as he could remember with his brother, 'Nathan', and his ever-protective mother. One happy family living life the way they saw fit, as their family had for generations. Still, be that as it may, he had often wondered about the world out there, down at the foot of the mountain. He grew wistful for its unreachable promise more and more these days. | |
| Sometimes he would travel to the edge of the cliff on which his cavern perched, and gaze down on the lighted, mysterious world below. The sights and sounds would enthrall him and fill his heart with wonder. | |
| They scared Nathan, though. For Nathan, life was life enough, and the world so far below their happy home held nothing but misery and terror. | |
| As much as Roland ached to experience that world down there, he had always known it was never to be. Down there, in the place his mother called, 'Snivilisation', men used metal to build machines that would speed them through the towns and cities. He'd only ever used metal in the act of killing; of tearing flesh from bone. | |
| Roland owned enough picture books, though, to know that Snivilisation was no place for the likes of him. He'd often finger through the books he'd salvaged from campfire raids, scraping off any dried blood that had gathered within their pages, and ponder the wonderful things that men did down below the mountain. | |
| Yet Roland knew he belonged here in the wilds. Where things were more simple - understandable and safe. Besides, Mother said the world would not ever accept his kind, however well he behaved himself and worked to fit in. | |
| Yet still he would wonder… | |
| He knew he was different. That much was obvious by simply looking down upon his very own hands - huge misshapen thumbs jutted out from above his wrists, and whereas his prey almost always had four fingers on each hand, Roland had only been blessed with two elephantine digits on each. And those were webbed. Fused together by leathery overstretched skin. | |
| He could feel his uniqueness in the weight of his head too. A simple caressing of his cranium revealed huge lumps, soft and tender to the touch, on top, and hard as rock at the base of his neck and the back of his skull. His head had none of the smoothness of his mothers or Nathans. | |
| His mother had called him, "one of the Lord's Special Children", and he had believed her, at least in his formative years. His brother had his own distinctive abnormalities in his appearance, though he couldn't boast of having Roland's great strength. Nathan's arms had reached almost down to his knees, reminding Roland of the apes and monkeys he'd seen in his picture books. His brother was a wonderful hunter, and a formidable killer of the women-folk, but he lacked Roland's brute strength when it came to dealing with the men-folk they so often encountered. | |
| Anyway, that was all done now. His brother had been shot dead two years previous, during a night-time raid on a campsite some younger men-folk had built in the forest to the east. Roland had shouted a warning to his kin on seeing the weapon revealed in one man's hand. Nathan, not being one to look at picture books, and certainly lacking anything resembling a working brain, must have assumed it was a stick or spear of some sort. | |
| The loud CRACK and the burst of fire that blasted forth from the shotgun had soon eradicated that possibility, along with half of his dear brothers' head. | |
| Nathan should have looked at more picture books... | |
| Roland had returned home that long ago night, with no fresh meat for mother to cook, and short one family member. All that was left of dear Nathan was a mostly headless, disproportioned corpse, and the brain matter and chunks of skull that had spattered on Roland's frock as his brother went down. On returning home, Mother had been furious – heartbroken too, but mostly furious – that he hadn't brought back Nathan's carcass. At least that would have fed them and made up for his inadequacy as a hunter/gatherer. | |
| He could still remember the beating he too - each burning lash of the whip, the exquisite parting of his flesh and even the smell of his freely flowing blood. It was a memory he would return to in moments of loneliness for comfort and peace. Mother had never come to realize he enjoyed receiving pain with almost the same dumb enthusiasm with which he enjoyed inflicting it. For Roland, it was simply another means to be close to her. | |
| *** | |
| Roland sat in his cave, watching the rain fall through the narrow entranceway and listening to the wind whistling amongst the pines; allowing his thoughts to become lost in his memories. He felt a keen and bitter loneliness these days, and he was hungry…always hungry. | |
| Since Nathan had lost half of what passed as his brains on that campsite floor, the forest had become a far more dangerous place to hunt. There had been manhunts for months afterwards as word reached the local community of a clan of monsters running wild in the deepness of the woods. Eventually, of course, the searches and the panic had died down to become mere rumor, and life had gone back to some sort of normalcy for Roland and his poor mother. The hills were far less populated in the days and months that followed Nathans demise, save for the occasional thrill-seeking teenagers who entered the woods looking for proof of the local legend – 'The Tennessee Terror'. | |
| They often found that proof, and a whole lot more besides, thought Roland, smiling. | |
| At least those kids had provided a source of nourishment. At least they had done that. The last year had seen the hills bring forth an ever diminishing choice of prey. Mother had said that all legends fade away after time, and that's just what Roland believed had happened. The thrill-seekers lost interest, and the locals - knowing the woods could house many deadly things - knew better. | |
| This winter had been the worst though; an unending struggle to survive the harsh and bitter cold and scrape through on the miserable rations they could scavenge. Their hillside sanctuary lost all of its warmth and comfort, and had begun to feel like a tomb. Roland and mother had fed when they could on the creatures of the forest, and had managed to etch out an lowly existence for themselves, but the lack of man-flesh was becoming very telling on both their psyches and their health. Roland had become far thinner, much quicker to anger and had great trouble thinking, or holding thoughts. | |
| As for Mother… well, Mother had simply ceased to be sane. | |
| He'd often wake at night to find her babbling to herself in strange tongues, or masturbating with whatever bone she had left over from the previous night's measly meal, pushing the bone deep inside herself and grunting like an animal as she did so. Frequently, on returning from yet another unsuccessful hunt, she'd be found doodling on the cave walls with her own shit; whistling as she worked her feces into the stone. | |
| The final straw had been when he'd awoken one winter night to her screaming, and found her gnawing off her own fingers, one by one. The screams alternated with moans of hungry satisfaction and she swallowed the flesh she'd ripped free with her broken teeth. | |
| She'd already worked her way through three of the gnarled, stunted digits, and was hard at work on the forth, when he'd rushed for her, and in his fear had yanked her to her feet and attempted to bring her to her senses. She had laughed as he cried; and even as he slapped her across her cheek and, when that failed to bring her to her senses, he'd smashed her face into the hard stone to shut her up She laughed even as blood dribbled from her ears and her skull cracked open like a rotten, bloated melon. She'd laughed all the way into oblivion. | |
| Later, when all the commotion was over, Roland had learned, to his great surprise, that his mother had died while pregnant with child. | |
| The child, of course, was his. That had been four weeks ago. | |
| The meat had kept relatively well. | |
| *** | |
| And now here he was, gnawing on the last of his own mothers withered feet. There was nothing else left of her, though she'd been as useful in death as she had become in life. Her flesh had sustained him this far, but now…now he was right back to where he started. | |
| He glanced over at the pile of stripped bare bones, at his mother's caved in skull, and sighed. It had truly been a rough few years. He missed his family dearly. His loneliness was growing to be all-encompassing. And his stomach….his stomach was growling like a wild dog. | |
| Roland lay his head down on the soft sheets that lay spread across the caves surface and drifted with his dark thoughts. Where to go from here? His family all gone, his home nothing more than an empty shell full of stinging, hurtful memories and his belly a clutching, cramping, constant reminder that times had to change. In time, his thoughts turned to all he'd learnt from his magazines and picture books. To those fast, whizzing metal beasts called cars. To the Cinema and its moving pictures and endless magical adventures. To long journeys on the choo-choo train, traversing the great American landscape without moving a muscle. It would all be so fun. | |
| Most of the only fun Roland, or his brother Nathan, had ever truly enjoyed was in the simple act of fishing; something their mother had taught them very early on in life. The small river where they had fished and found sustenance in their happier, boy-years was all but a swamp now. A man-made oil slick, fit for no living creature, and certainly not fit for hunting. They had often thought of moving onto pastures new, to cleaner, deeper, greener lands where they could hunt freely and live off the land. Of course, that had never happened. In the end, they had to stay close to Snivilisation, because, after all, human flesh was the most tender and delicious of all meats. | |
| And hunting humans was even more fun than hunting fish. | |
| The morning dwindled by slowly as Roland journeyed down the half-remembered highways and byways of his addled mind. Morning turned to day, day to dusk, and dusk into a cold, starless, and seemingly unending night. | |
| His hunger was becoming a serious problem now. At regular intervals, he could feel the sickening, familiar agony as his stomach snarled, twisted and raised its hackles in anger. He hadn't shit in three days. Not enough meat in me to even do m'business, he bemoaned. | |
| Roland, after much dull consideration, decided enough was enough. He would feed, and he would do it any way necessary. It was in his desperation, and in his hunger, that he hatched his plan. | |
| *** | |
| With hurting muscles, spinning head, and a heavy heart, he rose to his feet and fought the demons of exhaustion. He lit one of the torches he had always kept handy just inside the caves walls with his lighter. A device he had procured from a man named Harold. He and his brother had brought the nice man back home one night, despite his protestations. They had talked for long hours with the man, even though the man had seemed fearful of them and not at all too talkative. They had learned much of Harold's life; his children, his job, and his home. | |
| They had talked and talked until boredom and hunger chased away humor and curiosity, and when they eventually came at Harold with knife and axe, they had made sure to kill him quick. One blow through the center of his skull had turned Ben from friend to food supply. And he had felt like that, like a friend. | |
| Perhaps Roland could make more friends like Harold. | |
| With his light in hand he made his way to what he liked to call his 'toy store'. A small enclave at the very back of the den where he stored his many cherished toys. All those wonderful, strange little ornaments from the world beyond his own, that had so fascinated him for so long - dolls, small plastic cars, a bike, something called a 'camera' (which he'd never figured out how to use), and a whole plethora of clothes, torn and bloodied from countless nights of rape and dismemberment. | |
| It was to the clothes that he was headed. | |
| From the witching hour till the onset of dawn, Roland tried on a variety of outfits which he thought may be fit for his plan. The many children's clothes were obviously no good, and much of the adult clothing looked like those of a child when adorned on his massive frame. It was a long, arduous task, but with time and perseverance, he finally found what he was looking for. | |
| Now all he needed was some money. And he had plenty of that. | |
| *** | |
| He sat on the cliffs edge, where he had sat so many nights before, and watched the first light of the coming sun slowly begin to illuminate the small town below. How many nights had he and his brother sat here watching the color run back into the world? They were plentiful, he knew that much. It made him smile at the thought…he telling stories from his books, and Nathan laughing alongside him, perhaps at his well-told-tales, perhaps at some drooling phantom thought in his own head. It hadn't mattered. They had been together. | |
| Of course, Nathan would look down on the small town and its inhabitants with fear. And with Snivilisation seeming even more alien to his brother than it was to Roland, he would curse those down there, as would a mountain lion curse a herd, grazing across wild waters, so close yet so far. Those people down there were prey when alone or in small numbers, but in large groups - as Roland had assured him they were in the larger towns - Nathan had seen them as something to be feared. Accursed food, so close yet forever out of reach. | |
| Roland had no room for such fears anymore. He had only room in his head and in his heart for hope… | |
| *** | |
| The town was deserted as he made his way across a small stream and nestled himself among the close-grown trees and bushes that served as a border between the concrete world and the threshold of the wilds. He was close enough now to see that he was wrong in his assertion that the streets were empty of life. A few people were going about their day at this early hour. A man strolled by Roland's hiding spot, unaware of watchful eyes as he puffed on his pipe and blew clouds of smoke in the air. Two elderly women stood side by side at the far end of the street, deep in conversation about subjects that he suspected would be way outside his thinking, while their two dogs shit by their sides in unison. Other than these early rising folk, he may as well have been setting foot into a ghost town. | |
| These lonesome denizens of the dawn only held Roland's attention momentarily, as his eyes set on an even more fascinating sigh - the streets themselves. | |
| There was a wonderful display of dolls of all shapes and colors in one window. Another was adorned with countless bottles of 'alcohol'. He'd tasted many of these and even though they made him feel funny and a little sick after a while, he liked the taste very much. Here, there was wine, whiskey, vodka, and many more bottles he had never laid eyes on before. Over the street and to the south, yet another window boasted rows and rows of 'magazines', similar to those he had back home. Some of them with cartoons on the front, and some with pretty women, (the likes of which he'd seeded and eaten only very rarely). | |
| He had never, ever been this close to Snivilisation, and in being here, he felt a keen surge of fear and excitement, not unlike that which would overcome him on the many campsite raids he and Nathan had enjoyed. He wanted to dive in; to revel in this new, strange land of plenty. He could bathe in wine if he so wished. | |
| The strolling man had long since passed by now, heading to whatever wonders awaited him over yonder hill, and the two women were still lost in their own little worlds, as Roland gazed with eyes anew on the wonders that sprang at him with every turn of his head. | |
| In the shade of a doorway directly in front of where he crouched, with the stillness of a long time hunter, stood a large, round bellied man dressed all in white, and the man was unmoving. Roland quickly recognized the man as being made of plastic and only pretend, and he understood that the word above the door, 'Barber', meant that this was a place where men came to have things done to their hair. He had of course, seen many strange 'hairstyles' before, and as scalping was something of a pastime for his dear departed mother, there were even a few of them adorning to the cavern walls as decoration back at home. | |
| Without knowing, his misshapen hands ran through his own hair. Long strands of his filthy, dirt-caked mane stretched and pulled apart as he peered out into this wonderful new world. He wondered whether he could have a hairstyle for himself. | |
| Before long, the inevitable pull of his hunger snapped him out of his reverie, and his fleeting good mood passed him by. He must eat. And it was just at that moment that, like a portent, a sight befell Roland like none he had ever dreamed to see in his life. A sight that he'd marveled at for hours at a time in his picture books and magazines. A building of a very particular kind... | |
| Lights burned bright through the windows, revealing a veritable wonderland of vegetables, meats and beverages. Pretty clothing hung on plastic women for all the morning to see, and above it all, written in bold, blood red, was a sign. It read: Alistair's. | |
| For the first time in his natural life, Roland's sloping, bulbous eyes gazed upon a convenience store. | |
| And all his remaining apprehension fled. | |
| *** | |
| Jerry couldn't give a rat's ass about groceries. Or stock taking for that matter. His fuck-head of a father had set him up with this damned position straight out of high school and, this miserable town being what it was, with no jobs and less opportunities, he had been stuck in this damned dump ever since. Still, it paid for his weed, and it was always nice to have a little cash to throw at the ladies. | |
| Not that Jerry was in the habit of treating the ladies to long drives and candlelit meals. Fuck no! The pittance Jerry earned each week working at Alistair's was put to far better, far more effective use. His technique was simple, too. | |
| Buy cheap liquor, find young girl, lie his way into her confidence, and then ply her with all the booze the bitch could handle. Get her good and wasted, till she could tell up from fucking down, and then have his way with her. | |
| Tried and tested, 'The Jerry Method', as he boastfully proclaimed it to his buddies, was fool-proof. The little sluts never knew what hit 'em. And in a town this small, no little girl would ever want her proud Daddy or his drinking chums knowing just what she'd been sucking and fucking on the night previous. As a safety precaution, Jerry made it clear as crystal just what would happen to them should they decide to blab. They'd keep their damn mouths shut if they knew what was good for them. | |
| And so far, they had. There was no line of shotgun-toting rage-filled fathers knocking on the door of Jerry Osmond. No Siree-bob…not a single fucking one. | |
| Last night had been something of a letdown though… | |
| He'd been eyeing young Lucy Peers for a long damn time; ever since high-school, in fact. She'd been three years below him at the time, and was far too popular and above her station to ever even look his way, despite the age difference. As Jerry saw it, all the young pussy was looking for an older guy. It gave them status among their slut friends. You have an older guy banging you, you rise to the top of the witches coven. It was written in stone. Lucy was different though. The holier-than-thou little dick-tease had strut her stuff through the halls of Pinewood High like she owned the goddam place. Never once succumbing to Jerry's many covert advances. Bitch thought she was too good for him, back then. That had all changed last night though. | |
| She was now in her last year of her fine hometown education, and no doubt looking to the future with hopes and dreams that reached far higher than this shit-pile town could ever provide. She'd come of age. And with that, she'd gotten horny. | |
| Not that she'd showed any signs of being horny, or of wanting Jerry when he met her at Bill's house party, but he figured it was a given. She'd been doing the rounds when he spotted her. Flirting with the all the guys, and acting like her shit don't stink none. She'd avoided Jerry at every turn, though he reckoned this was down to nerves. After all, he was a looker, and had been working out regularly since his high-school days. The sort of guy that makes a girl wet between the legs and dizzy in the head. He understood she probably felt intimidated by his presence. That was okay, he could wait. | |
| Sure enough, after a few hours and a few too many drinks, the bitch had overreached. She looked pretty fucking ill, in Jerry's estimation, though, not so ill that she couldn't or wouldn't open her legs for a well-positioned knight in shining armor. | |
| He'd followed her outside as she stumbled into the cool evening air, presumably for a breather, and had offered her a ride home. She'd looked wary at first, sure, but soon Jerry's soft spoken words of compassion and understanding had won her trust. The whole conversation had bored him half to deaf to be sure. He couldn't give a lick-of-a-dick about her home problems, or her pending school finals. But he listened, and he smiled when required, and he let the prissy cunt spill her guts as only a drunken damsel in distress can; sighing when she unburdened her woe's and laughing gently when she perked up. He was a good guy. It was obvious. | |
| In no time, he was parking his car at the side of the road, and offering her a night-cap before he dropped her off at home. As drunk as she was, the fresh air had took the edge off, and as she was clearly feeling a little less woozy, he'd assured her a few more drinks wouldn't hurt. Like all the rest, she'd been more than happy to down a few free shots. Just enough to send her over the edge or reason, he reckoned. | |
| So, it had come as one hell of a surprise when things had turned shite-ways on his plan. | |
| There she was, drifting in and out of consciousness, when he'd unzipped his already rock hard junk from its denim prison, and pushed her head towards it, when she started to pull away from him! Somehow, even with a keg-full of beer and Scotch in her, the fucker had held on to her senses. Unbelievable! | |
| He'd spend a small fortune on the Scotch, at least half a day's pay, and here he was - having to force the whore to suck his dick. And she had some fight in her too. Lucy, it transpired, was a regular fucking warrior princess. | |
| She'd kicked and screamed, scratched and punched, until the whole thing had gotten far too unsettling for Jerry. He was a man of simple needs and simple wants. This was fucking ridiculous. Where most of his conquests were docile and submissive by this point, this cunt was ferocious. It became all too obvious, all too quickly, that she was wasting both his time and his money, and was much more likely to bite his dick off than suck it. | |
| It was at this point that he'd decided to call an end to the night's adventures, and had punched her square in the face. That put a stop to her hollering real quickly. He may have broken the bitch's nose, and she deserved no less. | |
| By the time Jerry finally managed to subdue her, he'd punched her twice more, once in the gut and once more in her pretty face, and had twisted one of her perky little titties so hard she'd begged and screamed for him to stop. It was the knife that had sealed the deal though. Soon as he'd pulled that 4 inches of gleaming, razor-sharp badassery on her, she'd hit the mute button like her fucking life depended on it. | |
| A few well delivered threats, and a final well-aimed hock of spit on her face for good measure, and his romantic evening with Lucy had come to its rather disappointing conclusion. | |
| Within the hour, he was tucked up in his own bed, dizzy now. He had drank so much himself, he couldn't even cum when he'd jerked off in a last ditch attempt at some fucking satisfaction. | |
| What a rip-off. Down twenty bucks and no pussy to show for it, he bemoaned. | |
| Shopping could be such a downer sometimes. | |
| *** | |
| Roland gazed in rapt wonderment at the sight that lay before him. He'd entered this magical place with a sense of anticipation unlike anything he'd ever experienced since his first kill, so many long years ago. His dreams and musing on Snivilisation had been true - his mother, with all her wisdom, had taught him to fear such places, yet he found himself enthralled by it all. What was presented on entering through the strange metal doors was a myriad of wonders once static and unreachable in photographic image, now laid before him like a banquet borne of paradise. His fear of the men-folk remained as keen as ever, but for now, he was perfectly alone. To Roland, this was the gift he had so long prayed for in the chilly, despairing stillness of long winter months. | |
| Even in his rapture, Roland realized he would have to work quickly. His was not so bedazzled that he was unaware of the threat that the town may still hold. It was morning time, and while Roland was a creature of the night that reveled in the twilight hours when mother and Nathan had slumbered, he knew that soon this town would become a thriving, living thing, teeming with those who would see to his end. He'd watched from far above many times as its people slowly began filling the streets. Time was Roland's enemy here. | |
| Those vengeance hungry men-folk were blissfully absent at present, but soon they would rise, and they would find him. He had witnessed some of the town's denizens already, and understood that these sleepless, lonesome souls were merely a prelude to what would soon transpire. The coming of the sunrise would bring with it many men, and the men would bring death. For all his strength he was not invincible. He bled and hurt like all living things, and like all that lived and breathed, he feared death with every inch of his being. | |
| So very little time to gather what he needed and so much food to choose from. | |
| He pushed aside his reverie and forced his mind to focus on the job at hand. He had come here to find a means to survive, not to lose himself in the alchemy of men-folk. His mission was all that mattered. | |
| Roland wandered the shelves, confused by the colorful wrappings on the meats, assailed by the potency of the intermingled scents. His mouth watered and his mind reeled as he thrust his massive hands into the raw, tender meats and shoved huge slivers of the beautiful juicy flesh over his broken, jagged teeth and down his throat. It was in the midst of his desperate feeding that another scent caught his attention; a scent that brought with it a glorious familiarity. Drool spilled over his huge lips and ran freely into his filthy, blood coated beard. He wiped himself absent mindedly as instinct and desire fought for dominance within him. He was vaguely aware that his pee-pee had grown hard, and was protruding from his make-shift outfit like the snake seeking out the mouse. | |
| Roland smelled, for the first time in many moonless nights and bitter days, the only meat that truly satiated. Fresh meat -living meat… | |
| *** | |
| This place was the fucking pits. | |
| This was turning out to be a shit-infested week for Jerry, and no mistake. Zero pussy, little cash, and a crushing fucking hangover to top it off. And he was stuck in this dump for the next eight hours to boot. The store was dead as disco now, sure, but soon enough the never-ending parade of single mommas would come crawling out of their cesspits with screaming, noisy little bastards in tow, and fuck his already miserable day hard in the ass. Why couldn't these cunts respect a man's fragile state of being, and force their goddam offspring to keep a lid on it for fuck sake! | |
| Jerry was never having kids, man. If some bitch ever threw the news his way that he was gonna be a daddy, she'd be kicked in the gut and shitting that baby out before the next sentence got past her lips. Kids were for suckers. Losers and limp-dicks who couldn't fathom that life was all about the 'self'. Not Jerry though. No fucking way Jose. Jerry was cut from a different cloth. In this world, there were only takers and the taken; and he was a taker. Damn straight! | |
| It came as something of a shock, and a damned unwelcome one at that, when he heard the familiar, ever-annoying, jollier-than-thou tinkling of the stores entrance-bell. That fucking thing rested above the door like a harbinger of doom, eagerly waiting for its chance to announce some shit-heel customer into the store and into his life. It was all the way down at the far end of the shop, and out of Jerry's sight, but at this hour it could only be one of two things - some miserable, coffin-dodging old fucker out for fresh diapers, or one of the town drunks, come begging for some early trade on cheap-shit liquor. Whichever, they could promptly fuck right off and dance the jig while doing it. | |
| When the smell hit him, he gagged. | |
| That sealed the deal, then. It had to be some sorry drunk sonofabitch. The air was filled with the smell of stale piss and shit. Whoever the sad bastard was, they had brought hell with them. He reeled from the vile odor, bile rising in his throat as he fought to hold down the vomit threatening to erupt from his poor, punished guts at any moment. | |
| The stink was getting stronger, now. The bastard must be just around the last aisle. Jerry could hear the clicking of shoes on tile…hear the drunken fucker, no doubt, as he shuffled along looking for the whiskey aisle. And was he humming a tune!? | |
| This shit isn't happening. Not today. No fucking way. | |
| Jerry ducked his head under the counter, and quickly found the baseball bat his fat-fuck manager kept at hand for aggressive customers. He wasn't sure if he planned to use it on the lush's head or merely threaten his drunken ass. He would like nothing more than to knock the bastard's teeth out, but he didn't much dig the thought of getting up close and personal with someone who smelled like they'd been dipped in a fucking un-flushed toilet. | |
| He grabbed the bat, and rose to face his inebriated adversary. | |
| And came face to face with a nightmare… | |
| *** | |
| Before him, towering over his head stood something that must have climbed straight up from the very bowels of hell. A man, if it was a man, so hideous in appearance, that Jerry was frozen to the spot, helpless. The baseball bat fell from his limp hand, and the disgusting reek that poured in waves from the creature was met with his own stink, as his bowels loosed. | |
| The creature's eyes were like those of a fucking frog. They looked like they may pop out its gigantic head at any moment. Its hair hung in strings around its enormous, bulbous head. Its yellow skin was pulled tight across its skull, giving it the appearance of some diseased freak-show attraction, inexplicably brought back to some hellish half-life. Its teeth rose like broken gravestones over its swollen, purple lips, and as Jerry's horrified gaze took in its massive muscular frame, the nightmare only worsened; taking on ever more surreal dimensions. | |
| It was wearing a fucking dress! | |
| Barely covering its rippling torso was a goddam summer dress. Once patterned with flowers and now stained almost black with dried blood and excrement. And worse, so much worse, was what hung from between its legs. | |
| The skirt was raised at the front, and rising from the filthy rags was the biggest dick Jerry had ever seen. The thing was huge, erect and pulsing with terrible desire. Boils ran along its length, some of which had very recently burst. Horrified…Jerry noticed a strand of semen swinging from its shining head. Whatever this god-forsaken devil was, it was up for some fucking partying.. | |
| Oh Christ, this thing is gonna fuck me, he surmised, through waves of nauseating terror. | |
| Without realizing, Jerry raised his hand in idiot greeting to the thing towering before him, and whimpered, "C-can I help you, Sir?" | |
| The monsters cracked, bloody lips parted, and it smiled. | |
| And that's when the walls of Jerry's sanity came crashing down, and the screaming began… | |
| *** | |
| The sun was riding in the sky now, bringing welcome warmth and light to the dark corners of the forest. | |
| High up in the hills, Roland looked back with pride upon the town below. The screaming had started only moments before, followed by several wailing sirens Roland had heard on many hunting trips. The entire town was awake now, and far beneath the mountain, all was chaos. | |
| Roland wandered peacefully through the beautiful Tennessee dawn. Safe once more in the sheltering sanctity of the wilds. | |
| He had gotten a little carried away with himself, and let his guard down. But it had all made for great entertainment. | |
| Ascending though woodland glades and high up into the mountains, he finally arrived at home. He set down all the shopping bags but one, and then proceeded to seat himself on the edge of his favorite cliff, where he could pass the hours and dream of the world below. | |
| After a time, the distant cacophony of screaming and shouting died down, and Roland focused only on the sweet soundscape of the forest that was his home. Birds sang their familiar tunes in the bushels, and a gentle breeze whispered through the treetops. | |
| It had taken Roland five bags to put all the pieces in - one for the head, one for the arms, another for the legs, a larger bag for the torso, and one final bag for his special treats. He hadn't meant to get carried away, but when the boy had begun screaming, it became necessary to silence him quickly. He'd grabbed the boys head in between his huge hands and squeezed until the noisy young man's skull had partly given way with a satisfying crack, and was delighted when the eyeballs had burst from their sockets. The screaming had stopped then, though the boy was strong, and had even kept breathing as Roland tossed him onto the tiled floor, tore off his clothing like so much paper, and rammed his pee-pee into the shopkeepers asshole, just like mother had taught him. | |
| Smiling, he reached for the first of his treats from the bag by his side. | |
| As he sat there, snacking on the bloody, flaccid pee-pee of a boy whose name he would never know, he wondered how long the meat would last this time. Not long, most likely. After all, there was no need to ration his portions now. Not with such a healthy supply so close at hand. | |
| And shopping was just so much fun… | |
| ⁂ | |
| [ KENTUCKY FRIED ] | |
| It was 7.48 AM, on a cool and grey Monday morning in late August, when my dear wife, Kate, burst into flames by the breakfast table. | |
| It's not the sort of thing one had come to expect of a typically average, and dare I say boring, Kentucky dawn... | |
| A joyless, secret jerk-off session in the shower in place of hot morning sex was absolutely part of the deal, and an endless stream of moronic morning television clogging up the old pineal gland was, of course, the norm as well. | |
| But the old ball and chain just up and flame-grilling on you for no goddam discernible reason? No -that shit does not an ordinary Monday morning make. | |
| If I sound a little nonchalant about the whole event, please understand it's not because I'm a heartless man. I love little doggies, I love my sweet little Grandma enough to clean up her poop on the odd occasion I visit her and find she's made a boo-boo. I pay my taxes, (grudgingly, I admit), and I only drink in moderation. | |
| I'm an all-around decent sorta guy, folks. | |
| It's just that I fucking hate my wife. | |
| At least what she's become. | |
| Hated, I should say. | |
| Before 7.48 this morning I was a miserable sonofabitch if ever there was one. If life is indeed a movie, mine's was a tragi-comedy directed by Edward D Wood Jnr. A cliché dipped in despair. A deceptively short movie - I'm only 27 years old, after all - that somehow managed to feel like a fucking trilogy, where each movie hits the four hour mark with little to nothing of consequence ever occurring; at least until today anyway. | |
| I'm prattling on. Forgive me my rude-ness. I really should introduce myself before I recant my tale, shouldn't I? Give you some info on the background to my story? That way you guys may judge me a little less harshly. Come to see my perspective, as it were. | |
| My name is Donald Mathias, or Donnie to my friends. I was born into a god-fearing all-American family of moderate social standing, and lived a relatively simple existence throughout my childhood and into my teenage years. Like most young bucks, my teens were full of experimentation; both sexual and chemical. I dug my Rock'n'Roll and I dug the ladies. I liked a beer as much as the next born and bred Kentuckian kid and I never met a bag of weed I couldn't get along with. I worked mornings in a local bar called Hershel's, and while earning very little; I was as happy as a chap can be. I wanted for nothing and nothing wanted for me. | |
| When I was a spritely 17 years of age, I moved out of the old folks place and rented my first flat with my good buddy, Derwood. He's the sort of fella that everyone loves instantly, and he was back then, too. He's a little acid-damaged these days, perhaps, and a mite too keen on the Scotch; but a good guy, nonetheless. A stand-up cat, as my old man would say. | |
| The rent was cheap and living was easy in those early days. What money we both brought in we threw together. A percentage of our earnings would pay our utility bills and the rest would finance our deep-seated desire to live the life of bums. | |
| Derwood worked just a ways down the street from Hershel's, in a chemist of all places. He earned a little more than myself, but in our self-contained world, money was a means to an end - the middle-man between the boring stuff, (work), and the good times, (the rest). In Derwood's eyes, (and of course, in my own), a penny saved was a penny wasted, especially when the world was full of liquor in need of drinking, and weed in need of smoking. We had a fridge jammed with a ready supply of our favourite beers, a widescreen television that could give fucking Skynet a run for its dollar, an Xbox console with a neat selection of games, and that tried and tested space age bachelor pad accessory of the ages – friend to all men – The Pinball Table. | |
| No man could ever ask for more, other than the sweet and tender love of a good lady now and then, and that was never an issue either. | |
| I won't lie to you, guys. I'm no Don Juan, at least not in the looks department. | |
| I'm not fuck-ugly either though. | |
| I'm never gonna steal chicks from Gerard Butler, but I could definitely give good old Steve Buscemi a run for his money and I've been told enough times during my encounters with the opposite sex that I'm cute. | |
| So I figure it must be true, at least to some extent. | |
| That said, cute is cute, and no chick has ever compared me to Brad Pitt or Wolverine, no matter how much high-grade acid she's eaten before commenting. | |
| Nope, I get by on slightly-above-average looks and the moderate dose of charm I was lucky enough to inherit from my old man. I got my fair share of the ladies, sure, but it was Derwood who was the pussy magnet. | |
| This guy, man - he looked like some sort of Greek God of Old, sent here with the dual purpose of making all us other men feel vastly inferior while effortlessly scoring with each and every girl the rest of us mortals always dreamed of having, but never could. | |
| I never begrudged the handsome bastard, though. | |
| How could I? | |
| He wasn't the jock type, nor was he a bully- he was kind to everyone he met and he never turned his back on a friend. | |
| Where most of the truly beautiful people in our world are insufferable dickheads; Derwood was a true gentleman, as affable and humble as he was striking and sexually magnetic. | |
| Being a mere mortal man, I guess I should have hated him, but, like everyone else in Louisville, I loved the guy from the inside out. Not least of all because we shared all the same passions, being in no particular order worth detailing: Weed, LSD, Science-Fiction, girls, and man's greatest endeavour –the aforementioned and almighty Pinball). | |
| Also, the guy's parents named him fucking 'Derwood', man. | |
| It seemed to me like his good looks amounted to the universe sorta helping to even out his chances in life, since his drunk-ass parents had so skilfully fucked him over at the very first hurdle. | |
| Imagine learning to talk and use big-boy words, and then finding out that your old folks had named you for a deep-woods dwelling, caravan coasting hillbilly. | |
| Imagine school. | |
| Just imagine that shit. | |
| Anyway…I must admit, it also helped our friendship greatly that wherever Derwood went, the girls surely would follow. And I had no qualms about looking after the dejected ones that never quiet reached my friends standards. | |
| No sir. I got my share of good loving and then some. | |
| So what if the truly stunning ladies ended up in his bedroom…I got the cuties. The, 'girl-next-door', types. And that was more than enough for me, kids. There is a lot to be said for being the wingman to an Adonis, and let no man ever tell you any different… | |
| Life went on in this fashion for nearing five years, and it was bliss. | |
| Looking back on it, we were living life like a pair of fucking Hobbits. | |
| If my life was that movie, I was the slightly overweight, reliable one - I can't remember his name off the bat, but I think he was a Goonie - and Derwood had the starring role. He was the tall dark hero, windswept and dazzlingly interesting. | |
| A filthy, fuck-able hero for the ages. | |
| The physical attributes linking us to Hobbit-folk only ran so far as my own worldly appearance, I admit. | |
| The days and years all passed by in a sort of stoned daze - as inconsequential as taking a piss in a rainstorm. | |
| Be nice to have a few photographs to reminisce over, but who has time to take photos? | |
| Still, if I ever have kids, I'd like 'em to know their dad wasn't always a care-worn shmoe with bloodshot eyes and a tragically balding head. | |
| That said; after this morning's chain of events, it doesn't look like I'll be having any young pups to boast to anytime soon… | |
| Now that the world has kind of fucking ended. | |
| I'm still really fucking shocked by how quickly things went from pretty to shitty on our planet, and practically all in the space of one night. | |
| It was like 'Black Friday gone global. Six billion people collectively losing their shit, either by flame or by fear. | |
| I was never much of a one for having faith in the human race, but Jesus, things went sour quick… | |
| Anyway, I'll get to that soon. First, let me finish up with what I'm starting to think of as my 'defence'… | |
| *** | |
| It didn't occur overnight, but in truth, I think I can accurately pinpoint the moment when my freewheeling existence succumbed to a kind of cancer. | |
| I never started coughing up my life-blood till some time down the road, but the moment when my happy little kingdom began to come crashing down was when I first slapped my eyeballs on Kate Price. | |
| Derwood and I were kicking back in our favourite bar, at that time known as 'The Little Rock'. It was the kind of establishment that catered to our breed of outcast. The boom-box was always kicking out the jams, and for the most part, the tunes were sound - Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix were commonplace for the more acid-driven kids such as my motley crew; Metallica and Pearl Jam and the like, would keep the grunge and metal crowd happy and knocking back the ales. It was a good mix of people and sounds - the sort of place where the lights were always dim and the vibes were always clean. | |
| If I could have eaten, shit and slept there…I most surely would have. | |
| I believe I've done all three on occasion, but not long term. | |
| Anyway, it was on this fine and footloose October night in The Little Rock, when I first caught a glimpse of the single most beautiful specimen of femininity I'd ever beheld. | |
| I was on my fifth Jack and Coke when out of nowhere, this heaven-sent creature approaches me. | |
| Me. The little guy! | |
| She asks me if I'm just gonna stare all day or if I'm gonna buy her a drink. Despite her somewhat clichéd cattiness, I must admit it took me more than a few moments to compose myself as this goddess stood before me with an unspeakably sexy half-smile painted on her luscious lips. She was taller than me, had legs that could destroy Tokyo and a set of pillows on her that could make a grown man beg for buttermilk. Long flowing hair, dark and straight, hung over her porcelain face. Her dark, smiling eyes seemed to sing of pleasures and sins previously unknown to mortal man, and her body…that body was the back-up band that looked ready and eager to play all night long. | |
| Perhaps I'd helped enough old ladies cross the road in my time, or handed enough cash out to the town's local bums to gain the almighty's favour. Who really knows? But at that moment, the little guy got the girl. | |
| Even Derwood was speechless. | |
| Though in true Derwood fashion, my noble compadre never once thought to cut in. Instead he - like this sex-drenched space-girl - simply waited. | |
| And waited, and waited. | |
| Did I tell you I was no Don Juan? | |
| Eventually I managed to drool out a response to her question, (if I hadn't, you wouldn't be reading this shit, kids), and by some miracle my response must have been both charming and literate, because within six hours, she was in my bed, on her hands and knees and as naked as the day the doctor slapped her butt - which is exactly what I was getting down to in the bed, as it happens. | |
| I fell in love and in lust with Kate the moment we met. I was doomed from the very start, man. Average guys like me get to jack-off to this sort of lady, but we never get to share fluids with them in the real world, know what I mean? | |
| And it wasn't just her outer beauty that caught hold of me so completely. She had an inner light that burned so bright it could drive a man spitfire-insane. That first night, after we fucked and lay there soaked and spent, she told me of her life. It was quite a tale… | |
| Here was a gal who had seen innumerable hard times, and had travelled far and wide searching for herself. She'd went from New York and down to LA, had hung with the hippies and had chased the sun, (and the dragon), for the best part of her young life. She had no folks to speak of, having been abandoned by them when she was just a kid, and no fixed address. She was, in short, my idea of perfection. A spaced out, free-flying lunar-girl. An ethereal cereal I wanted to feast on every morning for the rest of my damn life. | |
| We talked all through the night, interspersed with some more gentle lovemaking, and by the time the dawn had come calling, I was ready to get on one fucking knee and propose to this gypsy princess... | |
| We were married in a small, humanist ceremony attended only by close friends and family on my side. Kate only had her Mother on her side, but that woman was as proud as any I've ever seen of her daughter back then. | |
| It was the happiest day of my life. I was ready to give her my whole world - body, mind and soul. | |
| Turns out she was only interested in the soul part. | |
| Go figure… | |
| *** | |
| I'm still not sure of the exact moment that things went south for us. The first year of our shotgun marriage was a wondrous blur of sounds, sights, laughter and lovemaking. We embraced the world like big fat bastards at a buffet. We lived for the day and damned the dark. She moved in with me and Derwood, and the three of us lived like some sort of fucked-up hippy family He the cool brother and me the lucky lover. We were adrift on a wave of youthful abandon and it was the best year of my life, what I can remember of it leastways. | |
| What goes up must eventually come crashing down, though, and Kate flew higher than most. Her appetite for psychedelics was enormous, and she could drink a fucking Viking under the table. It was beginning to dawn on me that my damaged little space-girl was a lot more damaged than I'd first thought. What was once poetic was steadily becoming tragic. | |
| Life rolled on, though, as it always does, and Kate and I looked forward. | |
| After that first year, we decided it was time to start looking for a place of our own. We found the perfect apartment on Almond Street, just far enough off the beaten track to safely avoid temptations. See, by this point, I was getting a little worried about Kate's behaviour. She was putting back more cocaine than could ever be deemed healthy, even in our hedonistic circle, and the drinking had reached a kind of fever pitch. She'd been arrested four times in two months, and had even done a few weeks inside for possession with intent to sell. | |
| Now, as you're already aware, I like my chemicals, but I'm not a fucking lunatic. I lead, or led, a simple existence - fun, friends and frivolity. Hard drugs were an occasional thing for me; a kind of guilty pleasure, but for Kate, getting stoned off her ass was a way of life. | |
| The whole thing came to a pretty conclusive head one night when she'd arrived home drunk as all shit and crying her eyes out. I was already asleep when she crawled in the door, having spent the night hanging with Derwood and watching some old horror movies on the internet. My head had hit the pillow at around 11pm, and it was close to 3am was when Kate dragged her carcass back to our abode. She slumped on the edge of the bed, and through a veil of tears and running mascara, proceeded to confess her sins to Father Donnie. | |
| Turns out that earlier that night she'd dropped half a dozen ecstasy tablets, and had went on something of a booze-fuelled rampage around the local bars. She recalled a lot of dancing and a lot of tequila, and then, at some point during the evening she had lost consciousness. When she came to, she was being violently ass-fucked by some sweaty, drunken Neanderthal in some shit-stained men's room. | |
| She told me she was so numb from the drugs, she never knew she was being reamed until the whole thing was over, and the sleazy rapist bastard had finished with her and pulled his slimy cock from her battered hole. He'd left her lying there on the piss soaked floor, with her skirt round her ankles and his spittle running down the back of her neck. This, kids, was the last fucking straw. | |
| It was twelve steps or a dead stop. | |
| *** | |
| What I've learned -if I've learned anything - is that some things can never be mended. Some things that are broken just can't be put back together again, no matter how much you will them to or how much love and care you put into the repairing. | |
| Though I hadn't known it on meeting and falling for her, and though she had successfully hidden her sizable array of demons very well for the first year of our life together, Kate was broken. Stone cold broken. The mask had slowly fallen off, the armour had cracked in her psyche and the demons had come charging out. I still loved her - God, did I love her - but I was beginning to understand that there was little I could do to help her. You've all heard that old saying about a person having to help themselves before they can accept help from others? Well, that was Kate. It took some filthy rapist banging her in some god-forsaken shit-stall before she finally realised just how far down the dark path she'd trodden. | |
| Despite my encroaching sense of helplessness, I rose to the challenge, deeming it my noble duty to save my wife - to bring her out of the darkness and into the light, any way I could. And so after some gentle persuasion, and the promise to remain by her side through hell and high water, Kate agreed to seek some professional help. | |
| And that's when things got really bad. | |
| *** | |
| It was four weeks after attending her first counselling and group therapy sessions that my dear damaged Kate started questioning her faith, and a further two weeks before she stated in no uncertain terms that she had, found God'. | |
| Fine…no problem, thought I. I knew these damn twelve step classes were infamous for forcing faith onto the weakened minds of those poor souls whose paths led them there, but I saw little harm in my Kate finding some solace and strength in faith. If a little loving from Jesus could help her overcome her demons, I welcomed it. Hell, I encouraged it to begin with. | |
| When she started reading the bible, I quietly and respectfully left her to it. I still had my Richard Laymon collection to keep me sane - who was I to judge? | |
| When she started attending church once on Sunday and one night through the week, I quietly and respectfully left her to it, once again. | |
| When she ever-so-tentatively asked me to join her one Sunday, I agreed, (not without a little apprehension, mind you), as I was doing nothing that night and had to admit to being a little curious as to what went on in those, 'temples of the faith'. I continued to go with her many time more, even though I had no faith of my own. I let her believe that I believed. | |
| Yep, I'd done all this and more, and felt pretty damn fine about myself for doing it. I never believed for one second in any of it, but my love, who had so recently been teetering on the abyss, had finally found something she could hold onto, that wouldn't hold onto her. | |
| Or so I thought… | |
| Kate took to religion with the same manic fervour she took to narcotics. She'd slowly but surely weaned herself off of dirty physical habits, and replaced them with dirty spiritual ones. No simple, god-loving churchgoing endeavours for Kate - she leapt head first into the sort of fundamentalism that scared most good Christians rigid. Within a few months of us leaving our old apartment and heading off on our own; Kate had went from sin-loving drug-dustbin to Jesus-preaching head-case. | |
| It was only a month after that, that her church decided she wasn't welcome anymore in their circle. | |
| See, these were garden variety Christians, man - they loved their families, they done their best to be good people and they kept their religion, and opinions on matters of social morality, to themselves. They respected all others in our humble little community and were respected back in kind, by one and all. | |
| But Kate…Kate was the fucking Mother from 'Carrie'. | |
| I don't know what she said or done to find herself kicked from the flock, but from her behaviour at home, I had a pretty good idea… | |
| Our once humble crib was no longer adorned with posters of Jim Morrison or Arthur Lee. Now the place looked like the fucking Vatican. Crosses were hung everywhere, and the poetry and lyrics that once were framed and cherished, had been tossed in the trash, replaced with doom-laden verses from the bible and pictures of good old Jesus, (with white skin and blue eyes, too, I noticed). She'd make me say grace at dinner, and she'd all but given up on sex. | |
| "Not unless we're making a baby. Otherwise it's not God's good will" she'd say. | |
| As you can imagine…blowjobs and butt-sex were the first to go. Soon, the rest went with 'em, quietly into the night. | |
| My once shining beacon of freedom and love had become a goddam crazy lady, and was still only 23 years old. Now you tell me…how are you supposed to work with that? | |
| Before I knew it, she was proclaiming my beloved weed and beer to be the devils wares, and was convinced I'd burn in the eternal ovens of Hell should I not give myself to Jesus. | |
| She had me lay down all my favourite movies, and demanded I stop reading the, "filth that you think passes as fiction." | |
| She sold all my beautiful vinyl records - collectors' items and all - behind my back, and when I lost my rag with her, she calmly, arrogantly gestured to me for a fucking hug, and stated she was "saving me." | |
| I'd lost the real Kate, and somehow, somewhere along the line - I lost myself as well. | |
| *** | |
| It didn't happen right away, but as the months and then years rolled on, my love for her morphed into a sort of twisted, creeping dependence. | |
| I stopped seeing my friends simply because she thought they were a bad influence on me. | |
| I was weighing up the consequences. It came to seem that to hit the pub or visit a friend would only lead to extreme grief back at home, and I figured it wasn't worth it. | |
| I now know that this is how a person comes to find themselves in an abusive relationship. | |
| The old version of Donnie would have scoffed at such a notion, but here I was - drink and drug free, friend free, and trapped in a relationship with no love and no mutual respect. | |
| Fuck only knows when it happened, but after a time, she'd systematically worn me down to nothing. A shell with no one to turn to but the person who'd managed to imprison me. Men used their fists to beat into submission the spirit of their women; woman on the other hand, used something even more insidious…love. | |
| Forgive me if I sound a little forlorn or pathetic here…it's just that reliving this shit gives me the blues. I ain't looking for sympathy, folks, merely understanding. | |
| You see, if you push a man so far from himself, two things will happen: he'll snap and leave your sorry ass for pastures new, or if he's of less strong stock, he'll succumb and give himself over completely. And that, dear people, is exactly what I did. | |
| I'd long since packed in my job at Hershel's, and had found myself, (at Kate's request), a desk job working in life-insurance. Kate felt that working in a bar would put me in far too close vicinity to the grasping claws of temptation, and was adamant that it was time I grew up, fixed myself up with a real job, and replaced my long hair and flares with a flea-bitten sixty dollar suit and a crew cut. With no fight left in me to speak of, I went along with her demands. I feel like a weak-minded sonofabitch saying it now, but I had no sense of myself by that time. | |
| Thinking on it now, the one thing to which I hadn't succumbed was her love of the Lord. Shit, man; I'd never been any kind of believer anyway, and now I saw the fucker as the enemy. How strange to have an enemy that you don't even believe exists… | |
| He'd taken my Kate into his warm embrace and mangled her head into unfathomable new shapes that, so help me, made me pine for the drug-addled rape victim of old. | |
| Anyone who's been in this sort of situation and escaped will tell you the same thing, be they make or female - love has nothing to do with it. | |
| Love becomes a by-word for dependence and weakness. | |
| Insecurity and doubt stealthily replace passion and lust, and all those memories of when you first met this person who you adamantly believed was your soul-mate while flowers fucking bloomed in your heart…well, that's all nothing more than dust and ash, friends. | |
| Christ, I'm depressing myself reliving this shit. God only knows how you guys are feeling. I set out to tell a tale of the strangest day of my life, and it's become a goddamn confessional. I'm starting to think I should have left you to your assumptions about my character and got down to the nitty-gritty… | |
| So, that being said, and my wounds being freshly fucking open, let me tell you how the world ended. | |
| *** | |
| We'd been awoken to the sound of sirens at around 4am. | |
| Far in the distance at first, and in small numbers; the symphony of urban sounds soon became a cacophony. They were drawing ever closer. I was sat up in our bed in seconds. Kate just laid there, eyes open and a look of numb Buddha calm on her face. | |
| At first, I assumed there had been some sort of accident. Perhaps the steel mill over on Brook Avenue had caught fire, or some drunken dickheads car had veered off the road with fatal aplomb. My thoughts on the matter soon changed and my anxiety soon mounted. in tandem, with the ever-increasing sound of chaos coming from outside. At first it was only the sirens. | |
| Then came the sound of howling - agonised and tortured. | |
| I finally got to standing on legs that felt like lead, and slowly, numbly, made my way to the window that overlooked our backyard. The loudest wails were sounding from that direction. The curtains were still drawn, and I don't mind admitting it took every ounce of my willpower and courage to pull those fuckers back. Taking a deep breath and steeling my nerves for what I may see, I pulled on the thin fabric that stood between normalcy and whatever I may learn of that had so rapidly sent my quiet neighbourhood into seeming chaos. | |
| Animal lovers beware...here is what I saw. | |
| I'm not sure why it was only the dogs that let their horror be known in those early moments. Perhaps it was because they had been roaming the streets all evening while their masters slept, and whatever came to end the world came on the night-time breeze, and reached them first. | |
| Perhaps it was merely that their howling was louder than whatever else was going on out there, but howl they did. It sounded like every dog from Lassie to Cujo was getting in on it. Some of them out there were perhaps howling in animalistic compassion for their canine kin. | |
| Most though, were howling because they were on fire. | |
| On old man Joe's lawn, (a frequent drinking buddy in the days when I still had drinking buddies), what I can only assume was his beloved dog, Sally, was a writhing mass of flame and smoke. I could make out two legs, feebly kicking at the uncaring skies for endless seconds before her hell-sent release. | |
| Across from Joe's place, the next garden over, a man was rolling on the ground tussling with what looked like the king of the Rottweiler kingdom, as it went for his throat, lashing out in its panic and in its pain. The fucking thing looked like a goddam meteor with teeth. I watched in horror as my neighbour - or whoever the hell he was, I mostly kept myself to myself since my bitch of a bride cut my balls off - lost his desperate fight against the flaming beast. The burning mound of mutt tore out his jugular in a geyser of blood, and as the man's screams turned to liquid acquiescence, the poor, crazy, four-legged fucker succumbed to the flames that licked away at its flesh. | |
| The two of them, man and beast, lay side by side. The torrent of blood that flooded from his ruined throat was almost enough to put out the flames that poured from the hound…almost. | |
| To the rear of our garage, just to the side of where Kate's car rested in mechanical slumber, (even amidst the lunacy I was witnessing out there, the sight of the 'Jesus Saves' banner that emblazoned her rear window made my dick shrivel), a little Jack Russell was stupidly running in circles chasing after its own tail. In my stupor, I vaguely hoped the little fella never caught up with the damn thing. After all, its tail was lit up like a fucking sparkler and he'd be in for a mouthful of red-hot awful should he succeed in getting his fangs into it. I saw what was left of a cat sizzling atop our picnic table, and yet another one, alive and well and not in the least bit char-grilled, sat close to its cooking kitty buddy, licking its balls like it hadn't a care in the world. | |
| "Yeah, um, Kate?" I muttered. "I think…I think someone's setting dogs on fire out there. And a cat. Just the one cat, though - fuck you think about that shit?" | |
| It was all I could muster by way of describing the scene to my still near catatonic wife. Her response, much like our sex life, was dead on arrival. | |
| I turned my back on my lovely wife, who remained wrapped under the duvet and under the spell of her constantly corroding mind, and surveyed the scene once more, though my attention never held long enough to learn the fate of that little pooch. | |
| The night was suddenly filled with a new sound… | |
| I'm not the man to describe how it sounded, but I imagine if the hell that my darling wife was so convinced I'd be attending had a soundtrack, it would sound a whole fuck of a lot like this. It was nothing less than a symphony of agony…a concerto of pain. Prolonged wailing and screeching of the sort that hit you in some primal place you'd never known or cared to know existed inside of you. | |
| It was the sound of death and dying. A tidal wave of hurt, that seemed to be pushing in the walls of our unhappy home, to revoke our safety forever. | |
| And it was human. | |
| There was no mistaking it - people were dying out there, on our very own streets and from the sounds of it, in every damn street in San Quentin. And these were no tame and tepid horror movie screams spat forth from the lungs of Hollywood dollies. No…these were soul-freezing testaments to untold tortures being endured. | |
| Finally, my wife sat up. I don't know how long I stood there by that rear window, frozen in shock and horror at what I was hearing, but it felt like both a million years and a single moment. Time took a back seat to gut-level terror, and in the spaces when the wailing died down to near silence, it was all the more horrifying. | |
| In those silences, I could hear the humanity behind the hurt. | |
| Somewhere out there a man was screaming a females name in a voice that had long since passed hysteria and hurtled into the land of the mad. His daughter? His wife? Who the hell knows. There were countless maniacal treaties for mercy sent forth to the almighty, and the almighty was clearly off-hours. | |
| At one point, I even heard laughter. Somehow that was more chilling than the screams. | |
| Worst by far was the sound of the children. | |
| I've always had an issue with crying babies. Something paternal in me comes to the surface when I hear an infant cry out. It never fails to break my heart, and it sure didn't fail to break it on this dark, terrible night. Bad enough that I could discern at least four screaming infants nearby, but the images my mind was forcing upon me were taking me from the brink of terror to outright blind panic. | |
| Where were the parents? What the fuck was going on? | |
| I turned to Kate only to find that she had frozen in place. There was no expression on my wife's face - none. I'd figured that perhaps her usual pious demeanour would be well and truly extinguished, giving way to perhaps a more humane side of her than had been known to occasionally surface in recent years, but she may as well have been made of stone. Or porcelain. Her eyes were a double zero; here lips were drawn tight and she was unmoving. Shock…it had to be shock. | |
| I was just about to reach for my wife when the smell hit me. And fresh waves of terror coursed through my veins. The once relaxing scent of lavender and thyme that filled our sleeping quarters was mingling with an alien smell; creating an odour so pungent it made my stomach roil. I recognised that intrusive smell though. Hell if I didn't! Normally, it would have been a smell that would put a smile on any red-blooded American man's face, but in this moment, it promised of horrors unimaginable. | |
| It was the unmistakable, sickeningly familiar smell of cooking meat. | |
| My mind tried its hardest to take in the scale of what was going on out there, but a sort of dull idiocy was beginning to take hold of me. I don't know if it was shock or what. | |
| I made my way from the window where I stood to the adjacent window – one that looked out onto our front garden and the street beyond. | |
| Once again, near shitting myself, I pulled aside the curtains. | |
| The scale, it transpired, was pretty fucking huge. | |
| Whatever was going on out there was not restricted to the doggy kingdom. Not by a long shot… | |
| Many of the houses were ablaze from top to bottom, rooftops were collapsing in on themselves, and there were people in many of the windows, screaming in either panic or pain and the flames tore through their properties and eventually through their flesh. Lawns were ablaze, garden sheds burned and the majority of the trees that lined our humble corner of the world were little more than towering blackened infernos. | |
| My mind reeled. | |
| What I was seeing out there looked like nothing short of Armageddon, but Bruce Willis had obviously left his phone of the hook. Maybe he was drinking with the Almighty, because that fucker still hadn't shown face either. | |
| I saw death and destruction everywhere my eyes landed, man - it was hell. | |
| I saw a kid's tree-house that had become a bonfire, with the poor kid still in it. I'd watched that little guy whoop and holler with joy when his dad had built the thing for him, now I could see his blackened, charred hand grasping at thin air from the tiny window his father had so lovingly crafted. I thought my heart would shut down as I watched that one small, crackling arm drop for the last time as the boy was eaten by immolation. | |
| The only respite was the ending of the screams. Those screams were almost as bad as those of the infants I'd heard earlier. | |
| Speaking of infants, directly across from my once happy home, I saw a sight that will stay with me till the day I die, (which may not be very long... all things withstanding). | |
| The house across the way was the home of the Dawson's. - a family respected and loved by most of our community, Christian and non-Christian alike. Mr Dawson was a stand-up guy, and never passed the chance to smile your way or to offer his help in any way should he see you struggling with your car or cutting wood. Mrs Dawson was, forgive me here, a cougar to end all cougars. A damn fine specimen of womanhood have I ever seen one. They'd just recently celebrated the birth of their first born child - an absolutely beautiful baby girl called 'Patricia', and they'd never seemed so happy as when she came into their lives. Mr Dawson walked taller and prouder, and seemed to have aged in reverse since Patty joined the gang, and his wife had lost none of her luminance post-labour. In fact, she looked even more radiant. | |
| Right now though, there was no sign of Mr Dawson with his open grin and kind blue eyes. Right now, directly across the street, and mirroring my own second floor bedroom; staring straight into my eyes with silent pleading and unhinged despair, was his wife. | |
| And little Patty - innocent and unaware in her arms. | |
| The window was obviously locked as she struggled desperately to open it, and there were flames inching ever closer to them from the entrance to their room. | |
| There was no exit and less time. | |
| As I watched, numb with misery, I saw Mrs Dawson mouth something - more like scream it actually -behind the glass that encaged her and her child, I couldn't hear a word but I got the idea. | |
| Mrs Dawson raised that beautiful little six month old bouncing baby over her head, and threw her straight at the window. | |
| I looked away just in time to avoid seeing little Patty's end, but I heard the glass smash. | |
| I heard her confused and helpless cries and the sudden silence. | |
| I heard the wet impact as her tiny precious body hit the driveway. | |
| It was then that I blacked out… | |
| *** | |
| When I finally came to, I was met with a number of things - none even remotely welcome. | |
| I still lay where I'd fallen, and a pool of dried blood had matted my hair to the bedroom rug. Slowly lifting my head, I gazed around the room, hovering in some nether-dimension between shock and concussion. The floor, seeming miles below me in my dizzying, vertiginous state, was in a pretty bad way, and on any other morning I'd already be worrying about Kate's reaction, (or overreaction), to such a calamity, but today of course was different. | |
| A tell-tale blood-splash on the sill of the window where I'd been standing when I'd held party to the disgusting display outside quickly explained the agonised throbbing in my head and the mess on the carpet, but why had I fallen? | |
| I stood there for god only knows how long before the screaming pain in my head slowly began to recede. My vision returned to full clarity, and along with it, God help me, came my memory. | |
| That poor woman. Oh Jesus…the baby. | |
| I frantically reached for the curtains, and with my heart threatening to burst from my chest, I opened them once more. Please let it be concussion. Please don't let it be real… | |
| The street was quiet. But the sight of that poor broken infant betrayed the truth. | |
| I quickly turned away from the scene below and took in the morning's tale. It was clear from the smouldering, smoking wasteland out there that what had transpired was over, at least for now, but the devastation was everywhere. Small pockets of fire still burned throughout the district, and a number of huge blazes lit up the grey morning far off to the north. A could still hear the distant cries of the dying and but there was a chilling absence of the sort of sounds that such a massive tragedy would surely come hand in hand with. | |
| Where are all the fucking helicopters? Where's FEMA, for Christ sakes!? | |
| I scanned the skies, and they were free of all insects mechanical or otherwise, save a few birds that were no doubt scavenging for meats and treats I didn't want to think about. There was no longer a wall of sirens tearing up the city. Only a deathly graveyard emptiness that somehow seemed louder and more deafening that a whole goddam platoon of choppers ever could. | |
| It was as though whatever had swept through the city with such ferocity had vanished just as quickly, with an equal measure of finality. | |
| The world felt dead. | |
| I was broken from my reverie by the sound of our television downstairs, and in that moment I realised Kate was no longer in bed. Thanks for the fucking help, Kate, I thought, as I dragged my wretched self to the bedroom door, opened it, and made for the staircase. | |
| When I arrived in the kitchen, I found my dear sweet wife sat before our 32 inch widescreen, munching on a slice of half-burnt toast, and grinning. | |
| Yeah...Grinning. | |
| She looked like she'd just won the fucking lottery. Like all those ecstasy pills from her past has re-hit her all at the one time in concentrated moment of sheer, blissful abandon. | |
| Like the fucking city hadn't just burned down before our very eyes. | |
| Like right outside our front door there wasn't the fresh corpse of a little baby splashed across the tarmac. | |
| She looked elated. Elevated. Enraptured…. | |
| And that's when the droning voice emanating from the TV started to take hold of my attention. | |
| I wish it hadn't. | |
| She was watching a news channel. I'm not sure which, as I never watch that bullshit, and on any other morning I never would. | |
| Today would be an exception. | |
| I felt justified in that. | |
| Onscreen was a live report, coming in from New Jersey. A handsome, well-groomed black man who was visibly battling to maintain his composure and convey false authority against some internal protest of his obvious fear, stood before a massive building, perhaps a bank or a library. Who the fuck knows? What matters is that the thing was torched. | |
| "At around 5am, Eastern Time, the United States and the world met with devastating tragedy - an as yet unexplained phenomena occurred throughout each and every state in the US, and appears to have simultaneously affected the entire world, decimating entire populations in its wake.…human, animal and aviary alike. Whatever this advent is, it's causing amass numbers of individuals to - and this is backed up by hard factual and incidental evidence - spontaneously combust". | |
| I stared, slack-jawed at the fucker as my mind turned in on itself. | |
| "Did he just mention Spontaneous combustion?" | |
| I looked at Kate. | |
| Kate looked into space. | |
| The news-reporter went on. "What was first thought to be an act of terrorism was quickly determined to be a far more widespread and mystifying situation that any known terrorist cell or organization has the means or the know-how to perpetrate. The majority of the populace of the planet has been erupting into flame, either fully or partially. So far no logical cause for the phenomena has been determined. What's left of the US government has mobilised the remaining military and is in currently in talks with surviving governmental pockets from around the globe. The causation, at present, is baffling the scientific community worldwide." | |
| "You gotta be fucking kidding me! Spontaneous combustion!?" I declared once more, to no one in particular. | |
| "In what's being described by scientists and scholars as a 'freak ecological mutation' all sentient life on the planet, outside of the world's oceans, lakes and rivers, has been affected by some sort of unidentifiable imbalance in the ecosystem." | |
| "An imbalance that leads to human bonfires, right?" I asked my sweat-drenched TV buddy. | |
| "The fires have quickly grown widespread and have destroyed much of the world's known forestry and the cities and suburban areas are little better off -" | |
| "No shit, Sherlock" I retorted. | |
| "There is little more to report at present to the survivors of the US. FEMA is currently doing all they can, as are the emergency services throughout each state. Though we strongly advise all surviving civilians to remain in their homes. Remain vigilant, and pray. This has been Samuel Kendrick, for Channel 5 News." | |
| And with that, the fucker was gone… | |
| As if to heighten the sheer horror of what had just been reported, the reporters shaking, startled visage was replaced with an even less cheery sight -that of a montage of scenes from around the planet. | |
| Yep, the world was fucked… | |
| First up came footage of a passenger jet burning on the lawn outside the White House. | |
| Next up, we were treated to a vast forest fire that had engulfed much of the northern territories in Scotland. | |
| A shot from a helicopter showed Paris burn - the people of the famous city of lights, what was left of them, had taken to the streets, and were looting with wild abandon. The lights had very definitely gone out. The ones powered by electricity, anyway. The city was lit up like a bonfire. | |
| The next image was that of a zoo, I have no idea where. In an image so surreal as to almost elicit a giggle from my rapidly mentally declining self, a lion was smashing its cooking head into a Plexiglas window, while outside its confines, a man held tightly to what I think was a teenage boy. I assume it was his son, because even as the flames tore through the boy's body and engulfed the man, he held on to the kid regardless. | |
| I'd seen enough. With numb hands that felt weak as kittens' paws, I reached for the off switch and turned to Kate. | |
| *** | |
| She didn't appear at all flummoxed that I'd decided we'd had enough entertainment for the day. | |
| She remained sat there, gazing of to some distant shore that only she could see, and wearing that ecstatic, demented grin. | |
| I realised my wife and partner of far too many – and yet too few - years had completely lost her mind. What little mind she had left to lose, at any rate. | |
| "Kate? Kate? Are you feeling okay?" It was all I could think of to say. | |
| She never responded. | |
| Not so much as a twitch of the eye. | |
| My bug-shit crazy wife remained perpetually spacey. | |
| "Kate" I prodded, "this is no time to leave the building, honey. We have to think about getting some help. There's a dead baby across the street, Kate – a dead baby - and the whole fucking towns turned to ashes. Honey, snap out of it. We gotta figure this out." | |
| Still no response. | |
| I thought I'd change tact with her. See if I could reach her on a more basic level. | |
| "We should get in the car and get the fuck out of here, babe. Go see if your mothers okay." Here mum had lived alone the past five years, and had slipped into mild senility of late. Still, she had a hold on Kate that I never had. And I had to respect Kate's dedication to her mom. | |
| "Let's rattle the hell on out of here and go see if she's alright. She may need help with…" | |
| "She's fine." said my wife. | |
| "How do you know? Did you call her?" I asked. | |
| "Phones are down. No need to call her anyway…" | |
| "How do you know she's safe, then? Don't you wanna head over there and make sure, Kate?" I was growing more and more uncomfortable with her drugged-out demeanour. | |
| She was calm as a Hindu cow, and that made no sense at all – not a fucking lick of it. | |
| "She's safe because she's in heaven." she said. | |
| Despite my issues with my once awesome, then pathetic, then zealous and now clearly crazy wife, I really did love her mother. | |
| The woman always had my back, and never took sides. I often figured if she had to she'd have chosen 'Team Donnie'. Only bloods bond had held her to Kate in recent times. She was her mother, after all. | |
| She'd never understood Kate's religious fervour any more than I did and had hidden her true feelings on the matter from Kate for years now. | |
| She'd been my friend and my consort in all things biblically fucked up. | |
| So you can imagine my shock on hearing that she'd died. My mind overflowed with awful images of her burning. | |
| "Holy Christ! She's dead!? How do you know!? What the hell happened? I'm so sorry honey. I-I don't know what to -" | |
| "She's not dead. She's in heaven, Don. Why don't you ever listen? And please…don't use the Lords name in vain." | |
| What the fuck!? Was she really trying to pick a fight with me now? | |
| "You said she was in heaven, Kate." I said, "Can't be in heaven without being dead." | |
| Won't be in heaven at all if she has anything to do with it herself, I thought with vastly inappropriate humour. | |
| Her mom was a staunch atheist. Like I said, she didn't approve of Kate's present 'spiritual state'. | |
| "There isn't any death anymore, Don. Can't you see that yet? Can't you feel it in the air?" she replied, smiling that creepy-as-hell smile and never taking her eyes from the thousand yard point where her tumbling mind had decided to dwell. | |
| "Feel what in the air? What the fuck are you talking about? It's time we got rolling. We don't have time for this right now." | |
| "Rolling?" she laughed. "Rolling where exactly?" | |
| "If you're gonna go cuckoo for coco-puffs, maybe you should choose your moments more carefully." I hurled back – not an answer to her question, I understand, but no one was taking scores. | |
| She said nothing, so I revved up and charged on, happy to have some focus, even if it was centred on anger for my increasingly unhinged partner. | |
| "Did you hear what I said!? There's a child fucking spread all over the neighbour's driveway. Her mother has burned to death! There are fucking bodies everywhere and half the neighbourhoods on fire... you think this is a good time to lose your fucking mind?" | |
| My ranting seemed to have no effect on her at all. Even for Kate, this was some far out shit. | |
| "I don't know what planet you're orbiting right now, but your better come back to earth and fast. It's not enough that you left me in a puddle of fucking blood at the foot of our bed, and made toast and fucking tea instead of actually helping me! It's not enough that our town and now the whole damn worlds burning up. It's not even enough that your own mother may be dead! No…you'd rather just sit here and stare into fucking dimension X. God dammit, Kate, look at me!" | |
| Finally she turned to me, and in a floating detached voice which I've never heard her use outside the early, drug days, she said, "Can't you see what this is, Don? Can't you feel it? Mommy hasn't died. She's been taken." | |
| "Taken by what!?"I asked, completely at a loss as to where she was going with this. | |
| "Taken by our Lord and saviour - Jesus Christ." | |
| My anger subsided, replaced by worn down, weariness. | |
| Not this shit again. | |
| This was getting more ridiculous by the minute. "Honey -", I said in my most placating tone, "it's nothing more than a terrorist attack. I'm sure the news reports are exaggerating." | |
| A brazen fucking lie on my part. | |
| "This is all going to pass soon and -" | |
| "Yes. All things shall come to pass, Don. Even unto the end of the Earth." She was looking at me, but she sure as shit wasn't seeing me. | |
| "It's the second coming of our Lord, Don. He's riding on a chariot of fire, and has come to burn away sin and release our tainted souls from this wicked world. We've been chosen - we've been chosen to rise to the kingdom of Christ. At last, after so many long years, we're going home." | |
| "You can't really believe that, Kate." I said. "What I saw outside was no second coming. I saw people burning." | |
| "Sinners - one and all." | |
| "Including the baby!?" | |
| "We are all born in sin, Don." | |
| "So you keep telling me. I saw animals burning too – have the squirrels been bad little critters and now he's sending them to some nut-free eternity?" I asked. "I suppose the cat I saw licking its dick was one of your lot and on its way to heaven with the rest of you. Is dick-licking a sin, Kate!?" | |
| The faintest hint of a smile was etched on her face – she clearly thought me a fool, or a madman – typical. | |
| "You have to snap out of it right now and we need to find help. Enough of this religious bullshit." | |
| I have a tendency to open my mouth before I think, and I knew before that last part left my mouth that this was gonna be one of those times. | |
| Kate's expression changed. I should have known better than to come between a zealot and her delusions. | |
| The mesmerised, stoned gaze distorted, and a hateful scowl crawled its way to the surface. She even bared her teeth. | |
| "Don't you dare talk of the Lord in that way, Don. He sees and hears all, and you'll be left to burn. Don't you want to ascend with me?" | |
| No, Kate - I really don't, I thought to myself. | |
| "We could enter the kingdom as husband and wife. All these years we've talked about this and now you want to ridicule Jesus on the eve of his glorious return? You'll burn for this, Don! Repent and rise with me." | |
| You see what I have to deal with? | |
| "Honey -", instinctively I reached for the fridge door, my mind seeking solace in the long gone company of a cold beer, "we didn't talk about this for years. You did. You've been babbling about this shit since as far back as I'd like to remember, and it's probably my fault." | |
| She just glared at me. I took that as my cue to continue. | |
| "I fed into this bull! I allowed it to go on. I watched you turn from a space-rocker into a holy-roller, and I supported you on your little journey into dementia. I sat back and nodded my stupid fucking head in agreement at the never-ending stream of bullshit you ranted. I lost my buddies. I lost my fucking balls. And now it's really the end of the fucking world and you wanna sit here, eat toast and wait for the Son of God?!? You think he's gonna ring the fucking doorbell, invite himself in, eat our cornflakes and then whisk you off to paradise?! You're a crazy fucking bitch, Kate. You're a goddam wrecking ball of lunacy and I want you the fuck out of my life, you intolerable cunt - FUCK OFF AND TAKE JESUS WITH YOU!" | |
| Now, I know my timing was off a little bit. I understand that... | |
| Listen - when you gotta break wind you gotta break wind, and something in me had changed this morning. The world was most definitely ending one way or another, and I was pretty sure at that point we were most definitely fucked. Something in that knowledge set me free. I could feel the older, happier version of myself break to the surface as I let loose on the she-devil sat before me. | |
| It was long overdue, and by the look of shock on her face, I could see that the limp-mined lunatic never saw it coming. | |
| Ignorance sure is a powerful drug. | |
| Kate looked on me with stunned, hurt eyes. Her rage momentarily subsided as the pain set in. I like to think a second or two of reality hit her in that moment, and for a brief fleeting time, she was the old Kate again - free-thinking and fun-loving. | |
| A beacon of brilliant light in an increasingly dark and shitty world. | |
| I never had long to ponder all this though, as the mug of boiling hot tea that smashed over my head put all my hope to sleep fast. Along with the better half of my senses. | |
| *** | |
| "What the fuck!?" I screamed. | |
| It was all I had time to utter before Kate was on me. She lunged over our breakfast table like a panther to a gazelle. Even in my semi-stupefied condition, I could see what she was brandishing in her hand. | |
| A kitchen knife... | |
| Fear gripped me, clearing my head of some of the fog that had settled there, as I realised that the woman I had shared my bed with these last five years, was planning to stab my sorry ass to death. It was in her eyes, man. It was in her eyes. | |
| I had no time to speak or implore before she was on me - a screaming banshee sent from hell, or maybe heaven. | |
| I raised my hands in defence just in time to block the blade and avoid losing one of my eyes. | |
| The knife sliced through the palm of my left hand. | |
| Searing pain shot through my senses as I tried to hold onto the blade and push her back at the same time. | |
| My left palm gripped the knife by its metal blade, and as she pulled back to take another stab at me, she opened up my already mangled hand once more. I screamed in agony as the razor sharp steel sliced through my flesh a second time, cutting a deep bloody furrow in the soft flesh of my palm. | |
| She raised the blade above her head, and stabbed again. | |
| Luckily, in her dementia, she must have lost all sense of co-ordination. | |
| I say this as she was clearly aiming for my heart, but in her rage she managed only to plunge the blade into my forearm, just above the wrist. I could feel the metal scrape bone and hoped it hadn't gone in deep enough to do any real damage. | |
| Although between this cut, my ruined hand, my head-wound from last night and the mug that had smashed over my face, I was beginning to lose much of my mojo. | |
| If I didn't do something soon, she was gonna kill me. | |
| This morning had made a mess of me, and Kate looked hell-bent on finishing the job. | |
| I heard the knife fall from her blood-slicked hand as I reeled from this new agony. | |
| My eyes were pooling with fresh blood from the wound on my head my wife had so kindly re-opened with her teacup, and I was losing vision fast. The world was a maddening blur, filled with motion. Shadow and light were all I had to work with. | |
| I saw the shape of her moving toward me, and I did the only thing I could - given the circumstances... | |
| I threw the best damn right hook I could muster. | |
| Perhaps there is a god, because it landed. | |
| It's awful, I know. I was fighting for my life, though, and I think I may have had that battle-madness shit I heard about in Game of Thrones. | |
| I felt my knuckles crunch against bone, and heard the sharp crack as her nose shattered. | |
| Kate went down like a ton of bricks. | |
| I used the moment to wipe my eyes clear and get a bead on what to do next. | |
| In the space of perhaps ten seconds or so, our kitchen had become a warzone. There was blood everywhere. | |
| I'd lost a lot of blood during the attack, man. | |
| I felt a shiver dance through me as I pictured what she would have done had I went down during her frenzy. | |
| No doubt about it – she would have ended me. | |
| This was the final straw. The world apparently had gone as crazy as my nutjob wife and in that moment, vengeance overcame me. | |
| She'd ruined the best years of my life, had sucked all sense of joy from my heart, and now, after taking my freedom and my will, she had tried her damnedest to take my life. | |
| Hell no! | |
| It was time to end this shit, once and for all. | |
| If the world was going to hell she was going with it. | |
| *** | |
| I dragged what was left of my shattered self over to where she lay. | |
| She was out cold on the linoleum, her face a mess of blood and bone. Assorted fruits and cereal boxes surrounded her. | |
| She was already growing one hell of a black eye. | |
| My eyes searched under and around the table for the knife she'd cut me with, and finally fell upon it. | |
| It was strangely stood upright. The tip of its blade impaled in the blood-soaked lino. It must have landed that way when it slipped from her murderous hands. | |
| Damn that thing is sharp, I shuddered. She could have opened me up like a tin of beans with that thing. | |
| I reached for the blade, grasped it in my blood-slick hand and then crawled over to where she lay, bruised and beaten. | |
| I knelt before her with my knees pressed down on her shoulders to hold her in place, and with my good right hand I took the knife and placed the cold steel into the soft flesh of her throat. | |
| "This is for all the torment, Kate. I'm setting you free, honey. I hope you find the answers you're looking for out there, but I'm pretty sure murder - even if only attempted on a self-confessed asshole - is a mortal sin." | |
| I pressed the knife deeper into her flesh, and I could feel the skin begin to tear. | |
| All it would take now was one quick slash and she would finally be gone from my life. | |
| Hell, I'd earned the right. She'd tried to off me first, I told myself. | |
| Yet as I looked down upon her, with her swollen and blackened eyes shut and her nose in ruins, I saw the girl I had fallen in love with. Right now, in this moment, in her sweet oblivion, she wasn't caught in the web of her beliefs. She wasn't intolerant, or hateful, or judgemental or pious. | |
| In this moment, spread out on the kitchen floor and covered in Coco-Puffs and rapidly cooling Earl Grey, she was simply 'My Kate'. | |
| I couldn't do it. | |
| Instead, I dropped the knife to the floor beside us, and ran my hand through her cereal and blood matted hair. | |
| I never even realised at the time that I was stroking her with my slashed and mangled left hand. | |
| In those precious seconds, time had turned back, and all the chaos and disorder brought not just by this morning but every morning for so many years, was gone. | |
| I was simply a guy who had once loved a girl, and somehow it had all gone irrevocably wrong. | |
| She was still unimaginably beautiful, even all fucked up. | |
| Even before the last ten hours, her eyes had shone less brightly than when we met, and her smile had become a guarded mask she presented to the world rather that an expression of joy and love. | |
| She was still beautiful, though. | |
| This was a new world we were waking up into, today. Perhaps we could find a way to turn the clock back – reclaim what was taken from us. Maybe it wasn't too late. If I could make her see sense, maybe this whole horrible event could be the catalyst for her return to mental wellness. | |
| Hope springs eternal. | |
| I leaned forward and swept back her sodden hair. Then leaning closer I whispered into her ear, "I'm so, so sorry baby. We'll find a way through this." | |
| I didn't get to finish my romantic spiel, as I felt Kate's knee smash into my balls, crushing them like two grapes. | |
| They say that rage and adrenalin can imbue us with enhanced strength and dexterity… | |
| I'm here to tell you this shit is true. | |
| At least on a female's part. | |
| I don't know when she'd come to or how in her present condition she'd found the strength to punish my testicles with such ferocity, but it felt like both my nuts had been knocked into my stomach. | |
| Grunting, I rolled off my wife and collapsed into the foetal position amidst the morning's debris. I was barely aware through the pain that I'd thrown up all over the floor and was squirming in a puddle of half-digested eggs and toast. | |
| "The last supper", said Kate, and she was laughing. | |
| In no time she was on her feet and had a towel pressed to her crumpled nose with one hand, and that goddam knife in the other. | |
| She stood over me and smiled. Even in what must have been a great deal of pain, she smiled. | |
| Honestly...I couldn't see the humour in the situation. | |
| "You think you can take the Lords name in vain, Don?" she asked. "You think that now at the very end you get to drag me down with you?" | |
| She was breathing heavily, perhaps from exhaustion or maybe from excitement. "All this time you've lied to me. Had me believing that you wanted to be saved too - that you WANTED a new life...a blessed life. All you really ever wanted was to revel in your sin." | |
| Something like that, yeah, I thought. | |
| "No more time, Don. No more time to wallow in Satan's playground. The scraps the Lord left on the table for your measly soul's nourishment were gifts sent in vain. Today is not for you, or your kind. It's for the truly enlightened. The blessed few. You'll burn just like all the others, and then, Don, then your soul will burn. It'll burn until time ends. And you'll scream and you'll scream and no one will hear your call. The Lord won't hear your call!" | |
| I was having a very hard time grasping what she was getting at, (it was getting to be a habit), but I think I got the gist of it. | |
| Anyway, on she ranted... | |
| "You really are a fucking idiot, aren't you? This is no global anomaly! This is no terrorist attack! There's no help coming and there's no help needed, you imbecile. The Lords wrath has been loosed upon mankind, and the burning will continue until every last one of the sinners, fornicators, liars and blasphemers is little more than ashes blowing towards Hell. And you, my husband, are all of the above." | |
| While she ranted, I managed to gather just enough strength to pull myself upright. My head was spinning and my guts rolling, yet I made a spastic reach for the leg of the table to try and hoist myself up. | |
| And that's when she reached into my pyjamas, grabbed a handful of balls, and began to squeeze. | |
| In that moment, I would rather have been dead. | |
| Waves of nausea swarmed through my body. The centre of my being became that small sack of skin between my legs and the two crushed balls therein. My bladder loosed and I pissed feebly down my own leg and still she clenched her fist tighter. She squeezed them so tight I thought they would explode in her vice-like grip, and just as I was beginning to pass out, she stopped. | |
| "You'll listen when I'm talking, honey." She said, quite calmly. | |
| My world became torment - timeless and unimaginable. I was as helpless as a new born babe. She had defeated me utterly. | |
| She went on, "Did you think the Lord's gaze wouldn't fall on you, Don, as you scuttled around like a rat in your pissing little life - pretending to seek grace? How many days did you think you'd have to enjoy before the Dark One came to claim you, huh? I bet you thought it would go on forever. Living under a falsehood and betraying the sanctity of marriage." | |
| Through blood and puke, I grunted, "Uck oo!" It was the best and only rebellion I was capable of at the time. | |
| Kate was laughing. "Yeah, fuck me, Don. Fuck me! That's all you ever wanted from me anyway. You took me before marriage, tainted me, and tainted my soul. And now after all these years of deceit and lies and betrayal, you turn around and offer up your soul to the devil by insulting the good Lord on his returning day." | |
| It's not like she was a virgin before we met, but I guess in the throes of full-tilt madness, these little details become irrelevant. | |
| I tried to state something to this extent, but managed only a high pitched whine. | |
| "Save it, Don. Today is the day of reckoning for all mankind, and your time is up." | |
| And with that, she got down on her hands and knees, put the blade to my left eye, and said, "Beg for forgiveness or I'll take your sight before you die. I take your fucking eyes before Satan takes your soul." | |
| I struggled once more to find my voice, and managed a whisper, "I-I'm sorry, Kate. Please." | |
| I hated myself for saying it. | |
| She smiled. | |
| It was more of a grimace actually. | |
| What you would imagine a great white shark would smile like, before it bit your head off. | |
| "Don't apologise to me, dummy - apologise to God. It is He who is ever watching. It is He who condemns you. It is He who has brought this whole rotten, sinful world to its knees and it is He who will take all the children into his sacred embrace and carry us into Heaven this day." | |
| Fucking crazy bitch, "Sorry Jesus", I mumbled, feeling like a fucking idiot. | |
| "That's better. Now you can burn in hell knowing you done one good thing in your short miserable life." | |
| I fought to get up, but the pain shooting from my testicles and into my brain had all but crippled me. The cramps that clenched at my stomach had me doubled over and my mind and body were not as one. I was at the mercy of her. I was at the mercy of her knife. | |
| I was gonna die here on my kitchen floor, stewing in a puddle of puke and blood and warm piss. | |
| She raised the knife above my heart, positioning herself to plunge it in deep. | |
| "Any last words?" she asked. | |
| I didn't have much pep left in me, but what I did have I pushed to the surface. | |
| "Your mom's a fucking Atheist, bitch." I wheezed. | |
| "Nice try, Don. Time's up. Give my regards to your family." | |
| I tried to close my eyes. I didn't want to watch that gleaming six-inches of stainless steel plunge into my heart. I tried, but I couldn't close them. | |
| All I could do was stare, like a deer into an oncoming four-by-four as it bore down upon me with death behind the wheel. | |
| She gave me one last shit-eating smile, "Bye Donald." | |
| And then it began to happen... | |
| *** | |
| The knife dropped from Kate's hand. It fell to the floor, blade first, almost taking my ear off in the process. | |
| Yet my mind wasn't on the would-be murder weapon at that particular moment. | |
| It was all on Kate. | |
| My wife had frozen mid-plunge, as though every muscle in her body had turned to rock. | |
| Veins throbbed in her neck and bulged from her rigid arms, as she tensed so violently that I thought her bones may snap. | |
| The feral rage that had painted her features only moments ago had been replaced with a terrible expression that traversed some harrowing canyon between the twin peaks of absolute terror and blind anguish. | |
| In the beginning assault of her agony, her eyes met mine, and in that moment I could swear I saw a desperate pleading there. A need to be saved - from God only knew what. | |
| "D-Don? What's happening to me?" | |
| I was speechless. | |
| Swimming in the muck of my own mortal terror. | |
| I had no desire to help her, but her question was pretty darn valid. | |
| Her skin was blackening from the inside out. | |
| A sickly bruising was engulfing her flesh like a black cloud over a clear field. | |
| Every inch of her once-porcelain flesh was blackening at an alarming rate. And as I watched in horror, her ashen, corrupted skin began to rapidly blister; her body now thrashing wildly as more and more rippling bubbles stretched her skin and split. | |
| Her skin was boiling. | |
| Lesions were forming all over her body as her skin continued to crack and split wide open. Thick red and white pus oozed from her like vomit. | |
| The larger blisters erupted one by one, spewing warm cooked muck that patterned the kitchen milieu like some nightmare Jackson Pollock canvas. | |
| As I lay there, beaten half to death, I watched in horror as Kate slowly transformed into a mess of melting, viscous flesh. | |
| In her horror she somehow found the strength to reach out to me, whether to strangle me or plead for help I'll never know. | |
| As she reached out, the nails dropped from her fingers, and the skin began to slough off her hands in bloodied sheets. By the time her arms was outstretched in front of my face, the bone beneath was showing as her muscles liquefied and dripped to the floor. | |
| I crawled back from the hellish vision that had once been my sweetheart. | |
| It got worse. | |
| Kate was looking directly into my eyes and I met hers with my own. | |
| Those tender orbs that had gazed at me so many times, in both love and hate, slid from their sockets and ran down her cheeks like two half-cooked eggs. | |
| They hung there on red fleshy stalks, dangling momentarily before the stalks too began to melt. Her char-black lips peeled back for a second then split at the corners. Within moments they too slid down her chin, leaving behind a hideous grin as her face drooped into an unspeakable mask that seemed to express her despair, and slowly oozed from her skull. | |
| She tried to scream, but managed only to gargle as she drowned in her sloshing, bubbling flesh. Chunks of meat hit my face as she coughed in great hacking sputters. | |
| Her teeth clenched together so hard I could actually hear them grinding on each other, and in her agony, she bit down so hard her molars cracked against each other and spewed from her bloody mess of a mouth. Some rattled to the floor, others slid down to her now pendulous, distended breasts. | |
| And then after a merciless eternity, the fire that had been burning my wife alive from inside her, burst forth from her skin and she went up like a fucking firework on the fifth of July. | |
| The cooking, unrecognisable creature of exposed bone and stinking meat that had been my wife, somehow managed to scream in those last moments. Really, really scream. | |
| *** | |
| What came immediately after my wife's demise is something of a blur. | |
| I recall a time passing before the immediate danger of our house burning down took hold. I vaguely recall stumbling around on drunken legs searching for a blanket, a hose, anything to put the flames out. | |
| I needn't have bothered though. By the time I arrived back at the scene of this unexplainable carnage, Kate was little more than a steaming puddle spreading across the linoleum. | |
| Amazingly, the fires that burned within her had died out as quickly as they had engulfed her, and the puke, tea and piss had done the rest. No need or the fire brigade. | |
| I upturned one of the fallen breakfast chairs that had valiantly remained intact, and I sat down wearily amidst the wreckage of our marriage home, surveying the desolation before me. | |
| Exhaustion had taken hold so absolute that even the smell of poor Kate couldn't force my ass from that chair. | |
| And there I sat, dazed and more than a little confused, staring into the vastness of space like the half-crazy person I was clearly becoming, until the phone rang. | |
| Mumbling to myself, I picked up the receiver. | |
| "Hello?" I stuttered. | |
| "Jesus fuck, Donny! You're alive, man! And the phones are back up! Can't believe your still with us, bro. I've been trying to get through to you for hours!" | |
| I couldn't help but smile at the ever jovial, ever reliable sound of my best friend. | |
| "Derwood." | |
| "In the flesh, brohiem! Although it's been touch and go for a while. I almost got blindsided by a huge fucking explosion. We won't be shopping and Penny's All-Night Petrol Station anymore bud, that's for sure." | |
| I couldn't help but laugh, "You're a madman, Der". | |
| "That's as may be, hombre, but I'm a live one. How's things at your end? I take it your aware the fucking world has ended and whatnot?" | |
| It was a rhetorical question. I hope it was a rhetorical question. | |
| "I'm alive, Der. That's good enough for now. You any idea what the hell is going on out there?" I asked, knowing full-well what his answer would be. | |
| "Not a clue, my man. Everyone's got their own bead on what's causing this thing. The holy rollers are calling it Judgement Day, the tree huggers are rolling with an extreme side effect of global warming. Fox news are claiming it's the Muslims." | |
| "Figures." I added. | |
| "All I know is that we're all on our own for the time being. From what news I was able to gather before the cable went down, it's the same shit the world over - people and animals are bursting into flame. No rhyme or reason for it. No pattern at all, supposedly. Fuck, man. I watched that little fucker Bentley burning up like the wicker man not twenty minutes ago. How'd you like that shit!?" | |
| Der seemed in good spirits, and I had to admit, he was really cheering me up. | |
| "You never did like that guy." I said. | |
| "Hated the fucker; goddam little thug ran around like he owned the place. Well, no more, poncho! No more." he laughed. | |
| "Glass half full, huh?" | |
| "Always, Don." There was a pause, and then he went on, sounding markedly more cautious, "How's the old ball and chain?" | |
| I sighed, "She's dead. She burned up this morning. It was pretty fucking horrible, brother". | |
| "Shit -" | |
| "Yeah. Things got pretty heated before she died - no pun intended. It's all water under the bridge now, Der. Over and done with." | |
| "I'm sorry, Don. I know things were tough for you for a while there, but that's harsh. How you holding up?" | |
| "Good. I'm good. A bit battered and bruised, but I'll survive. As long as I don't go up like a stick of dynamite anytime soon -" | |
| "You and me both, buddy. I was worried for a while but it seems like it's dying down out there. Seems to me like all this spontaneous combustion nonsense is done, at least for now." he went on, "I've been thinking about all this; what it all means, you know? And I'm thinking maybe it's a purge of some sort." | |
| "Fuck sake, Der. Not you as well." | |
| "Yeah, man. Think about it - the worlds been going to shit for a long time - bankers robbing the people blind, illegal wars across the globe, those Monsanto assholes monopolising the food supply, fucking police states springing up all over the fucking place." | |
| "I'm with you so far -" | |
| "I think it's nature's way of telling us to calm the fuck down and behave." | |
| "You frightened me for a second, there, man. Kate thought it was the rapture. She thought she'd ascend." I paused, "She didn't." | |
| "Of course not, bro. This ain't any goddam rapture. I haven't seen anybody beamed up into the cosmos, have you?" | |
| He didn't wait for my answer. "And anyway, I saw fucking dogs melting, bro. What kinda God would send a doggy to the big fire?" | |
| I hadn't thought of that. "Valid, Der. Very valid". | |
| "Damn right it's valid! Anyway, whatever's happened has happened. I'm thinking we're in the clear. I'm also thinking that just in case we're not in the clear..." | |
| I laughed openly at that, knowing full well where he was going with this. "We should hang out and get high." | |
| "We should hang out and get high!" Der confirmed. | |
| "Ah fuck, I'll be over soon as I can." | |
| "That's my fucker!" Derwood hung up the phone. | |
| I pulled my shit together as fast as I could. Cleaned myself up and got some fresh clothes. | |
| I made sure to pocket the knife Kate had been planning to skewer me with, just in case I ran into any assholes out there, and made for the door. | |
| I took one last look back at the reddish, brown stain that had been my betrothed, and made my way out into the smoke-filled dawn. | |
| *** | |
| It's been two days now since the world underwent its forced cremation and there have been no more cases of spontaneous combustion since that first, crazy night and the following morning. | |
| The powers still down, and the streets have gotten pretty dangerous pretty quickly. Lots of looting going on out there, of both products and people - women mostly. | |
| Derwood has taken to calling the situation, 'Humanity Uncut'. | |
| I'm thinking he's probably right. | |
| It's looking like a very uncertain future for the human race, but hasn't it always looked that way? | |
| *** | |
| Some would argue that the human empire was destined to fall. Others would argue that it had already fallen long before the fire came. | |
| Why some people burned up and others survived we may never know... | |
| It may have been a genetic issue, or something to do with man-made Global Warming, or a reaping performed by Mother Nature, as Derwood suggested. | |
| It's even possible that Kate was onto something and that if there is a divine consciousness in the universe, it got sick of our shit. Derwood's theory isn't that far removed from hers – perhaps only in his humility. | |
| That still doesn't explain why some humans and wildlife survived though. | |
| And if it was a God, it must be a real prick to kill all those innocents so ruthlessly. | |
| Me - I'm not the world's deepest thinker. This mystery is for better men than good old Donnie to fathom. | |
| On a personal level; I'd lost my wife long before that sunny morning and whether she was chosen specifically, or the whole thing was a crap-shoot, she made the choice to leave the world in a less than noble state of being - that makes me sad, but in essence she'd died long before that day. | |
| Feels like a part of me burned up too – a part that won't be missed. | |
| Maybe now I can rebuild myself from the ground up, along with everyone else that's left in this brave new world we're facing. | |
| Could be we all live on forever in a cutthroat, post-apocalyptic world. | |
| Could be we rise to greatness; now that we have this clean slate to work with. | |
| Hell, it could be our gooses are all cooked by the coming sunrise. | |
| For today, though, I'm spending time with my best buddy and living my life to the fullest. | |
| It's something of a shame that it took a Kentucky- Fried morning to make me realise how precious our time is, and how important it is that we be ourselves in the time we have, but I'm done with regret, and with looking back. | |
| I'm done with being consumed by sorrow. | |
| Derwood has gotten his hands on a generator. God only knows where from, but I woke up and here it is. | |
| His aim is simple - get the Xbox back up and running. | |
| I think he may actually manage it. | |
| I'm feeling hopeful about the matter. | |
| From now on, I'm a 'glass half full' kinda guy. | |
| And I'm staying single... | |
| ⁂ | |
| [ TELEVISION EYE ] | |
| It's 8pm on the fifteenth of June, and as the evening sun shines its warming rays down on the residents of sandy shores, a small group of children kick a worn-down ball between them on the heat-softened tarmac that makes up the one-lane road on Filamore Drive. | |
| They make the best of the last caress of the setting sun, knowing that soon enough their parents will call from creaking trailer doorways and beckon them into the light of their homes; out of the looming darkness, where danger is ever present even in this tiny, forgotten patch of land where everyone knows everyone. | |
| For most of the residents on Filamore, the working day is done, (if it had ever gotten started in the first place), and the adults are all huddled together in front of their televisions, supping beers and making out. | |
| The sounds emanating from the assortment of trailers that line both sides of the dusty little neighbourhood fight for supremacy in the Texan dusk – radios kick out the classics, televisions drone their familiar drones, a sole lawnmower buzzes like an angry wasp as an elderly man fights a losing battle with his rapidly declining patch of grass. | |
| There's a trailer parked a little farther back than the rest of them. | |
| Off the beaten track, as it were. | |
| One that looks exceptionally run down, even in this less-than-dazzling environment. | |
| From inside, the familiar sounds of the community's, (and perhaps the state's), most well-loved news show push themselves through the cracked front window and out into the relative quiet of the weed-infested driveway. | |
| The sounds never reach the rest of the community to mingle with the rest of the comforting symphony that is small-town living. | |
| It's 8pm on the fifteenth of June, and in Sandy shores, life is going down smooth and slow. | |
| *** | |
| For Mike, life had always been a stone cold case of black and white. | |
| Each and every aspect of his existence was built around the concept of absolutes - right and wrong, good and evil, reality and fantasy. | |
| It wasn't that he spent a great deal of his time speculating on the limitations of human existence, only that simplicity was built into his very DNA. | |
| Hardwired into his internal computer - the program remaining assuredly unaltered over his years. | |
| Mike was no theologian nor was he of an intellectual bent. Those were pastimes and concerns for wiser, more passionate men. | |
| In fact, Mike Echol's entire worldview was not of the sort that anyone, even in their most generous moment, could call perceptive. Mike's mind never swayed into the realms of human experience or the mysteries of man's condition, and it rarely left the comfortable conscious campfire of his two great loves – his country and his beer. | |
| Mike loved both with a fervour that bordered on religious. | |
| Religion, as it happened, came a close runner-up to the two dominating poles of his existence. | |
| A star-spangled flag danced proudly in the Texan winds on a pole he'd erected to the rusted panelling of his trailer, and his cooler was never short of a brew or two. Any time his buddies Merle and josh came by, the guitar would come out, the songs would be sung – mostly Christian – and the alcohol would flow. His bible, though rarely opened, rested on a dusty dressing table, right underneath a small framed image of his lord and saviour, Jesus. The Good Lord's image looked worse for wear these days. The corners turned up with time, and the deep blue of those glorious eyes that used to shine so bright that Mike imagined He was looking straight into his heart, was all but grey. | |
| If there had ever been erected a poster boy to represent the great American western man - the blue-collar, hard-working god-fearing and country-loving gentleman that made the great united states of America run smoothly - it was Mike. | |
| As honest and humble a man as he was, he saw himself as ranking the most grounded of people. He loved the baby Jesus Christ, he loved the man in the white house, and he loved the beautiful state where he'd spent the entirety of his quiet, humble life. | |
| He was neither fanciful in his thinking nor belligerent in nature. Anyone living in Sandy Waters would tell you he was a stand-up guy. | |
| A true 'good-ole boy'. | |
| No airs and no graces to be found. | |
| And certainly a man with no desire to upset the applecart of his own simple, uncomplicated existence. | |
| So it came as a huge shock to Mike as he sat there before his TV on his beaten down sofa with a cold Coors in one hand and a Marlboro burning down in the other, when like a bolt out of a clear southern sky he found himself realising - with all the terrible clarity of an alcoholic who wakes up after oblivion to find his life has jumped ship - that every word that was coming out of the pretty blonde newsreaders mouth was absolute, 100% pure, multi-coloured bullshit. | |
| Mike hadn't been giving much thought to what the gal had been reporting on when his moment of clarity came knocking. He'd been far more concerned with the tantalising contours of her full-breasts as they pressed against the fabric of her slightly-too-tight shirt, and the come-to-bed glint behind her smiling eyes, to give any real attention to the crisis she was documenting. | |
| After all, it was more of the same thing that each and every other day filled the airwaves. | |
| Another fire-fight had taken place in some far-flung corner of the middle-east – surely in another god forsaken region where the populace where more prone to strapping bombs to their chests and blowing themselves into kibbles than enjoying a good pint – leaving casualties on both sides. | |
| Same old, same old... | |
| It was all too depressing, and as far as Mike was concerned, the whole lot of them could burn. | |
| Bunch of damned barbarians anyway, he'd thought. | |
| Prism News was the only news organisation he would ever give his time to, and he saw himself as just as much of a card carrying member of the chest-beating, patriotic crowd the channel embodied as any good American man. | |
| He was proud of this and saw it as his duty as a citizen to unquestioningly support the war machine. After all, America was and always would be the good guys. The government that sent our boys and girls out there had only our best interests at heart. | |
| The least we could do was support the government in their efforts with no questions asked. | |
| One Muslim dead or a thousand, it wasn't his problem. | |
| The presenter - he'd forgotten her name somewhere between his fourth and fifth beer - had been detailing an attack on an outpost that had led to the deaths of three US troops, two British boys and an unspecified number of middle-eastern casualties. The footage shown was the usual sad cavalcade of destruction, military nobility and heartfelt praise for the dead soldiers. There had been an interview with a high-standing member of congress who forcefully maintained that the boys had died in the name of duty, and that the sacrifice they'd made at the altar of freedom was one that, 'we as a nation' would not take in vain. | |
| All good stuff. | |
| Yet it was right then that Mike had a vague sense that something was wrong with this picture. | |
| He was pretty sure the esteemed member of congress' father, or perhaps grandfather, was a known deserter during that ugly business in Vietnam, yet here he was, standing proudly and bravely declaring that the conflict must continue. | |
| Mike also was becoming fitfully aware that there were no images being shown of the dead on the enemy's side. | |
| This feeling he was having didn't sit well with his worldview. He didn't care about the damned Iraqis, or the collateral damage for that matter. | |
| Did he? | |
| I do, he thought. Of course I fucking do. | |
| These are people just like me. Just like— | |
| In that moment, something inside him rose to the surface. | |
| It began in his belly as a sickly fluttering of wings and spread through his system, making his heart beat to a faster drum. His eyes began to sting and his vision clouded over for a fraction of a second. He felt his palms begin to sweat and his mouth begin to dry. A creeping guilt was beginning to build in him. How could he have been so heartless? | |
| Am I having a panic attack? | |
| Mike had little time to ponder the matter at any length before his mind truly betrayed his lifelong belief system and whispered ever so softly into his conscience... | |
| This is all a lie. This is fucking propaganda I'm seeing –innocent people are dying for these bastards and this channel is propagating it. | |
| Mike's beer slipped from his numb grip and clunked onto the carpet, lukewarm liquid slowly chugging out onto the flowered design like a tainted bloodstain. | |
| We're being duped, he thought. How the fuck about that!? | |
| Without realising, Mike was shocked to find himself declaring aloud, in semi-inebriated disgust, "Fuck these wars!" | |
| His mind was reeling from this vastly unwelcome realisation. The sure-fire certainty he'd heard in his own voice shocked Mike to his core, more than he could ever have imagined. | |
| Although what shocked him profoundly more, was when Mrs Full-Tits on the TV stopped what she was saying mid-sentence, looked up into the camera from the report she'd been perusing on her shiny silver desk, dropped her trademark sexy smile, and in a chillingly cold tone, said, " That's not the reaction we're looking for, Michael." | |
| *** | |
| Mike stared at the screen. | |
| The reporter stared back. | |
| His thoughts tumbling down dark tunnels, he reached with shaking hands for the controller, and began to press the channel-change button in rapid succession. | |
| Nothing happened. | |
| The screen flickered momentarily every time he pushed the button, as though the channel would indeed change, but the image that remained before him was that of the no-nonsense reporter. | |
| She was still staring directly at him, silent. | |
| This can't be, he thought. | |
| He mustered the best and only reasonable response he could find. "What the fuck?" | |
| Without missing a beat, the woman smiled as though on cue. | |
| He noticed in the moment that the smile never met her eyes. There was no humour there, other than the mirth a spider may affect had it the capacity to express its vicious intent to the fly. | |
| "The 'fuck', as you so eloquently put it, Michael, is that you're beginning to upset me." | |
| Mike tried to formulate words. None were forthcoming, though his mind was rushing headlong into some very scary places. | |
| Did she just fucking respond to me!? | |
| That's not possible. | |
| I'm having a panic attack or something. | |
| I must be. | |
| No way did that gal just berate me from the damn telly. | |
| He dropped the remote and stared, aghast. | |
| She continued. "Do you think it would be at all possible to close your mouth, Michael? I have no desire to study the contents of your gullet." | |
| "What the fuck?" Mike asked again, to no one at all. | |
| "Mike. Can I call you Mike?" | |
| The words seemed to slide from his mouth, like drool from a baby, "Sure...okay." I'm talking to the fucking TV. | |
| "Thank you, Mike. Thank you." She cleared her throat and clasped her hands on the desk before her. "You're probably wondering why you're sat her in your dirty underwear, talking to your television, yes?" | |
| It took him a moment to find his voice. "I'm having a fucking breakdown, aren't I? That or the beer was out of date. Or I've been spiked. Or..." | |
| "No, Mike. You're not having a breakdown of any sort. At least not of any sort you have in mind. We do have a breakdown though, between you and me – one of communication." | |
| "The fuck?" She may have had a point on that note. | |
| "Could you be a dear and put out the cigarette in your hand before you burn the whole house down, Mike? That would be set a good precedent for our time together." | |
| The Marlboro was burned down to the filter, and his forefinger had already begun blackening from the heat. | |
| Mike hadn't felt a thing until she mentioned it. | |
| With a small hiss of pain, he threw the remains of the cigarette in the ashtray, wondering as he did so if perhaps it really had been laced with some of that wacky-tobacco Merle was so fond of. | |
| "I'll kill the bastard." | |
| The television lady sighed as though she'd been through this rigmarole a thousand times before. "Kill who, Mike? No one has brought you to this moment but yourself." | |
| "You're an hallucination." | |
| "I assure you I'm not." | |
| "And I assure you, you are. Now fuck off! Televisions don't talk back!" | |
| She smiled. "This one does." | |
| "No. This one doesn't!" Mike lunged of the couch and hit the manual on/off button, this time so hard he nearly broke his finger. | |
| The image remained. | |
| The creepy bitch had raised her eyebrow like she was dealing with the dumbest dipshit at the Derry. | |
| On hands and knees, he desperately crawled behind the box and yanked the plug from the socket. | |
| The television remained on. "I'm not going anywhere, Mike. Now do you think you could sit down and start acting like a good boy?" | |
| Her tone reminded him of his fifth grade English teacher. | |
| He hated his fifth grade English teacher. | |
| Still, he found himself standing up and backing towards the sofa. He plunked down on the soft couch and stared, caught somewhere in a minefield between crippling fear and stark outrage. | |
| She cleared her throat again. "As I was saying, you're not going insane. You're not under the influence of any intoxicants other than the ones we deem fit for consumption, one of which is now spilled liberally across your fine rug." | |
| Acceptance began to thaw his scepticism. She was really talking to him. Looking at him. | |
| "You can see that?" he asked, knowing the answer. | |
| She looked down. "Yes, Mike. I can see that. I'm looking directly at you. I'm talking to you. Is it really that much of a surprise that I can see your surroundings too? You really ought to get up to speed on modern technology." | |
| You're not fucking kidding, he thought. | |
| "Anyway, as I was saying. You are sober, or as close to sober as you ever seem to get, and you're absolutely lucid. You're also having a conversation with your television. I realise that these two things may not seem like perfect bedside companions to you at this time, but that is neither here nor there." | |
| "What do you want?" he asked, now riding this utterly crazy train to its dreaded destination. | |
| "We were discussing a breakdown in communications, were we not?" | |
| "Yes. I think so. I..." | |
| "Now I need you to stay calm here, Mike, and answer me as honestly as possible." | |
| "Okay..." Mike felt his bladder clenching. | |
| "Good. Now...not five minutes ago you were happily watching the news, yes?" | |
| "Yes." | |
| "And you said something, didn't you, Michael?" | |
| He noted she'd reverted back to calling him by his full name. "I don't understand." | |
| "Yes you do. You were watching a report on the fire fight is Fallujah when you had yourself a little epiphany of sorts. Is that correct? Answer me honestly, Michael this is very important." | |
| Mike was having difficulty holding onto his thoughts, but yes, he had been thinking something, hadn't he? He'd felt sick and had, for the first time in his life, allowed himself to entertain thoughts that didn't sit well with his own system of belief. | |
| He'd said something too. | |
| Out loud. | |
| Don't tell her what you said. | |
| "I may have been thinking of something strange, yeah. I drank quite a bit and..." | |
| "You only had five beers, Michael. Four and a half considering you spilt that last one. You can drink that volume of alcohol without experiencing flatulence. We both know this." | |
| "I suppose, but..." | |
| "You said something, Michael. What was it you said? And remember to answer truthfully." | |
| Instinctually, he knew that this strange, attractive woman was extremely dangerous. He was authentically stuck in this fucking lunatic situation, and he sensed that the answer to her question was the crux of all this madness. | |
| Mike was trembling. Her emphasis on the question was daunting, and he had no time to conjure up a lie that would hold any water. | |
| Think, Mike. | |
| He stared into the woman's eyes, no longer seeing her beauty or her sex appeal but instead seeing real threat, and a terrifying lack of emotion. You woke up, didn't you, you fucker. You clicked onto the parade. You saw through the veneer to the truth of it propaganda machine. This is what she's getting at. This is real. And you could be in a whole bucketful of shit if you play this thing wrong. She already knows the answer. She's somehow monitoring you. This is some fucking black ops bull-crap and you're smack-bang in the centre of it. Play it cool. | |
| "I think I said...I think I said 'fuck these wars'." | |
| She smiled. It seemed to last a lifetime. "Thank you for answering honestly, Michael. As a reward for your willingness to admit to truth, your daughter will not be harmed." | |
| My daughter! | |
| Rebecca lived with his ex-wife in the heart of the city. Lucy had landed her dream job out in the big old world and had up and left him without a word of warning or a pot to piss in. She had taken their only child and rose to great success while Mike had plummeted into loneliness and alcoholic dependency. | |
| It had broken his heart. | |
| Rebecca was ten years old, had hair like golden sunlight, and was the only thing Mike had ever loved more than his own life. | |
| "What have you done with Rebecca!?" he shouted at the witch on the screen. | |
| Again, she smiled. "Nothing at all. Right now she's at home with Susan baking chocolate brownies. She's hoping you'll visit tomorrow as she's very proud of her cooking and has made them especially for you." | |
| "How in the hell can you know this!?" | |
| The sly smile never left her lips, as she calmly responded. "I know this because the same software runs in her home too. The only time the code breaks is when one of you steps out of line." | |
| "If you harm a hair on her head I'll hunt you down! I'll burn your world to the ground! Who the fuck are you!?" | |
| "First of all, Michael, you can't harm what doesn't exist. I'm a computer construct, existing simultaneously in homes all across the nation. I'm an approximation of a sexually appealing woman based on studies that tested over a thousand American male's idea of the perfect woman. I serve only as eye candy, and on days like today, as a messenger. Second, you and your family are not exclusive to the ideals or import of the organisation I serve. You are serfs. You are not unique. You are fuel for the fires of the military industrial complex, and you are malleable thought existing only to serve us. And when one of you has an original thought, it's my job to step in and clean up the mess." | |
| Mike was flabbergasted. "Original thought... all this because I questioned what you were showing me?" | |
| "Sadly, Michael, it starts with just such a thought, or a realisation that is of the nature of the one you just had, and it grows from there. It is, and always will be, our job to control what you see and feel. What outrages you and what brings you joy. We are the flag you fly outside your door, the music you listen to as you drive to the job we supply you. We are the prison, and your thoughts are the prisoner. And when one of you reaches deeper into yourself, just as you have today, it is imperative that we maintain the balance. The alternative is revolution - a tearing down of our impeccably constructed system." | |
| Terror pounded on the doors of his psyche now. Tears beginning to flow unnoticed as he listened, and the reality of his predicament clenched at his heart. | |
| He could hear his daughters' laughter echoing through his mind and wondered in horror if he'd ever see her again. | |
| The unholy creature being transmitted into his once seemingly safe and secure living room continued. "When you took the first step to suspecting that I - or we - were lying, you essentially broke the spell that lends itself to our cause." | |
| "Which is?" He was shaking from head to toe, dangerously close to hysteria. | |
| "A global technological prison society, of course..." | |
| Suddenly he was shocked to find himself laughing. Am I losing my fucking marbles here? "Of course..." | |
| "The wars we fight cannot be fought without the consent of the people, Michael. The illusion of democracy and of a free society cannot be maintained while the populace remains awake to our plans. All over the world right now – France, Britain, Australia, Germany – similar systems to our own are working in tandem with us to bring about our new world. The process is a long one and requires arduous strictures on the populations' perception of events as they unfold on our planet. It's unfortunate that we have to clean house so often. We can thank the internet for that. People just as yourself are even more problematic – you arrived at your conclusion fully formed and without any research or any pre-emptive insight." | |
| "Speak English, bitch. I'm not Bill Gates." He hissed. | |
| "You're a potential freedom fighter, Michael. And that's unacceptable." | |
| She paused, and Mike felt like the air was so thick that he'd choke, turn blue and fucking die right there and then. | |
| "If all this science-fiction mumbo jumbo is true, then where the fuck does that leave me?" | |
| The woman – if she could even be called such a thing - smiled that vacant, emotionally derelict smile, and replied, "It leaves you at a dead end. Both figuratively and literally, I'm afraid...should you choose unwisely." | |
| *** | |
| Mike felt his asshole clench. All his muscles simultaneously tensing as he instinctually poised himself for flight. Had this bitch just threatened his life? What the hell was he going to do? | |
| Without another thought, he lunged forward and reached for the neck of his trusty guitar, which sat rested against the arm of the chair, within easy reach for when the mood took him. He grabbed it in both hands, sprung to his feet, and screamed. "Get the fuck out of my living room, bitch! Just leave me the fuck alone!" | |
| The construct rolled her eyes. "Mike, do you really think smashing your own television will save you? We control everything - every channel and every radio broadcast – we watch you from all sides at all times. From above, from below, and from all around. If you think you can escape by simply smashing this current form of communication, please feel free, but the information I'm about to give you could prove to be important to you...very important. I'd strongly advise for your own safety that you, lower the instrument, be seated back on your couch, and listen more intently to me than you have ever listened to anyone before." | |
| "You threatened my Rebecca!" | |
| "I assure you, Rebecca is safe for the time being. Our interest at present lies only with you and with your on-going awakening. Though it must be stated, your process of illumination carries far less nobility and grandeur than we are used to. It's a great disappointment for us to lose your support, Michael. Your mindless machismo is among our most desired traits in our serfs. It's a real shame." | |
| "Yeah, well..." | |
| "That said, the consequences for your non-compliance will be severe. You now know we are watching at all times. We are everywhere, and you have no way out. Your daughters agonising death is merely one order away, and I'm tiring of our little charade, now sit down. You have five seconds." | |
| Mike braced himself. Torn asunder by terror and confusion. | |
| "5..." | |
| He gritted his teeth, readying himself to smash the bitch's digital face to kingdom come. | |
| "4..." | |
| He gripped the slender neck of his prized guitar tightly and raised his arms for the swing. The demonic transmission remained unfazed, of course. | |
| "3..." | |
| He saw sweet Rebecca's smile in his mind's eye. | |
| "2..." | |
| He heard her laughter echo in his ears like all the heavens angels in their heavenly choir. | |
| "1." | |
| He closed his eyes, felt the adrenaline flee from his shaking limbs, leaving him weakened and in a state of half-life. | |
| Rebecca... | |
| He lowered his impromptu weapon, knowing as he did so that its use would be less than futile, and that it would likely herald the murder of his little girl. | |
| He threw the guitar aside, and acquiesced to the constructs demands - fell back onto the couch, took a deep breath that felt so chillingly like his last expulsion of free air, and raised his hands in supplication. | |
| "I'll do what you want. Please...please just leave my daughter alone." | |
| The digital nightmare being beamed into his home smiled, knowing the fly was inextricably caught within the web. Mike realised in that moment that it would always be love that the unseen controllers she represented would use against men and women like him. It would always be the goodness that lay in a man's heart that would tear him down at the last. He knew, as he gazed into what passed for this soulless constructs eyes, that there would be no pleading and no bargaining with real evil. | |
| The devil would thrive on man's good intent, and in her smile he saw the devil. | |
| It was without horns, nor tail, nor fiery red eyes. | |
| It was the numb comfortable banality of following the pack. | |
| It was countless digital images beaming into the human heart and usurping truth with derelict dreams of the material world and hatred for ones fellow man. | |
| It was the education system, the military, the quiet corruption of churches in small towns and the proud wasted greed of the bankers on Wall Street. | |
| It was every single time a good man saw evil and done nothing to stop it. | |
| And above it all, directing the people into accepting the devils dreadful blueprint, was the media. | |
| The television eye.... | |
| In that moment, Mike realised that what the nightmare on his screen had said was all true. He had seen through the veil, and could never ever see the world as he'd seen it before. Of course people with clarity of vision could never be afforded a chance to thrive in the society that was being built by the very hands of those it would imprison. | |
| He fleetingly envisioned a world where truth was law, and managed to smile briefly before a deep despair settled in his soul. | |
| It's too late. I'll never get to experience the world as it is. All I can do now is try to save my baby. | |
| "What do I have to do?" he asked. | |
| A moment passed in eternity before she replied. "We can't have you seeing the world with brand news eyes, Michael. Therefor we need to spoil the view. Go fetch your sharpest knife..." | |
| *** | |
| The kitchen knife rested in Mike's cold, sweating palms. He stared at it, taking in its terrible smoothness as the morning light shone off its steel blade. | |
| It was the sharpest he could find amongst his meagre assortment of utensils. | |
| He'd used it on many occasions to skin rabbits or even the occasional deer after a long, leisurely days hunting with his friends. It had served him well, and he prayed to a god he was rapidly losing faith in, that it would do its job as quick and sure as it had so many times before. | |
| As he stared into its steel, and seeing the promise of pain untold, he feared his strength would flee him, and that he couldn't go ahead with what the evil witch on his television demanded of him. | |
| "You can survive this, Michael. A phone call will be made on your account advising that there has been an awful occurrence at your address...that of a complete psychic breakdown. You will spend the rest of your existence in a mental hospital, right alongside the other raving lunatics who scream and claw at the worlds veneer. Your words will fall on death ears, but your daughter will live." | |
| "Then please...why can't you just have me locked up and be done with it?" he begged. "Why take my sight?" | |
| "We're all about symbolism, Michael. You'd have come to see such things were you free of your predicament. The removal of your eyes by your own hand is a most satisfactory act, symbolically and as causality for your imminent incarceration." | |
| "Please..." | |
| "You need not go ahead with the act of self-blinding, but should you choose to break your orders I can assure you that what will befall your daughter will be far, far worse. I will spare you the details. After all, we are not heartless." She paused momentarily then said, "Do not push in too far, or you will puncture the brain - best that you simply burst the eyeball and move onto your right. Now...Begin..." | |
| I have no choice, he thought in abject horror, they'll kill my little girl. | |
| The media sentinel sat quietly, watching as he raised the knife to the soft, jellied flesh of his left eye. Nothing more was to be said, he realised. He would either follow her orders or the only thing in this world he held more dearly than his own life would be cut down - her innocent life torn from her in ways he could barely stand to imagine. There was no way out of this. | |
| He knew now that eyes were upon him, watching not only from the flickering portent of death that had become his TV, but perhaps from satellites soaring high above, or drones zooming in so close they could detail the sweat running into his eyes as the knifes razor sharp point drew ever closer by his own hand, poised to steal from him all light and all beauty, once and for all. Should he survive this horror he would be condemned to darkness, a lifetimes worth of abysmal emptiness. | |
| But Rebecca would remain in the light. | |
| She would remain unaware and would, he prayed, grow up never to question her world. | |
| His blindness would be her sight, and his own self-inflicted fate would be the conduit for every precious day she enjoyed on this planet. | |
| Please God, help me find the courage to do this. Please... | |
| Closer... | |
| You can do this. | |
| Mike pushed the tip of the cold blade into the white of his eye, just below his rapidly flickering pupil. | |
| Closer... | |
| He felt only a subtle pressure as the blade pressed against the sclera. The tissue was incredibly tough, prolonging his terror. | |
| He pushed harder, the pain now beginning to register in nauseating waves.... | |
| The point of the blade slid along the wet surface of his eyeball, scratching the thin film as its tip found the pupil. | |
| With the knife now centred, he applied more pressure. | |
| He pushed hard. | |
| Suddenly Mike was howling as the tough exterior gave way and the knife point punctured the tissue of his cornea; his eyeball burst in a geyser of gore; the blade piercing the soft jelly of his lens as he pushed in further. | |
| There was awful scraping sensation as the blade sliced through the skin of the eyelid as he plunged it deeper; fresh blood mixing into the viscera of the deflated orb. | |
| He wailed in agony as the slick fluid ran down his trembling cheeks like bloodied egg yolk. It ran into the contours of his lips and he tasted the foul slime on his tongue. | |
| Despite the horror, he could sense the chill of the evening air push into the hollow chasm of his socket, and take roost there. The semen-like mess that was now dripping onto his lap with a rhythmic 'plop' remained warm as it splashed onto his legs. | |
| Mike screamed then, so loud and so despairing that, had he been aware of anything other than his own torment, he'd have heard the crows that housed in his garden taking flight into the morning sky, as if in terrified retreat from the evils within their proximity. | |
| The tip pierced the soft membrane of the socket, sending fresh jolts of burning pain through his trembling, juddering body. | |
| When he was sure it was done, just as she had ordered, he finally removed the now slick steel. | |
| The knife slid from the ruin of his eye-socket with a vile sucking sound, carrying with it the remaining fluids. | |
| It dropped from his hands to the floor as Mike instinctually clawed at the cavernous hole in his face, trying to tear the pain from his skull. His nails dragged and ripped at the skin of his cheeks, drawing white-hot lines down the mess of his features. | |
| Mike clenched his mangled eyelids closed, desperately trying to dull the waved of stinging fire coursing through his head like red-hot needles; the hurt only increasing though he was powerless to stop. He could feel the last viscous remnants of his eye ooze through the cut lids. | |
| He fell to his knees, howling and with his one remaining eye streaming tears, he fought to look up at the monster that was a spectator to his torture, and though he could no longer find words, he begged as best he could with his right eye to be spared from any more of this hell. | |
| "Now the other." she said. | |
| *** | |
| Mike lay curled on the rug in a foetal position. What remained of his once sky-blue eyes was smeared between his fingers and the rough-hewn weave of the fabric he rested on. Shock had sent his mind on a journey into nothingness after the slow, torturous removal of his right eye, but the excursion was painfully short-lived. | |
| As his mind fought to push through the mental fugue that had enveloped amidst the suffering, he was dimly aware that he felt like he was crying, and he wondered if he could even shed tears anymore. | |
| Blackness, impenetrable and all consuming, had followed Mike back from the depths of his psyche, and with it came the full atrocity of what this monstrous woman and her masters had inflicted upon him. | |
| He would never see again. No more sunrises. No more morning hunts in the local woodland.... | |
| No more Rebecca... | |
| He would never see her life-affirming smile again. | |
| Never see her eyes light up like the heavens every time he picked her up from her mothers' home. He'd never haul her into his arms again and tell her he loved her, and be able to see without question in the depths of her pale green eyes, that she loved him back. | |
| He lay on the wet, sticky rug and wept. | |
| But she'll be alive, Mike. She'll be alive. She'll see all those sunsets for you. She'll see all the worlds' wonders that you were too damn stupid to pay any attention to. Rebecca will live a full, beautiful life, blissfully unaware of the corruption that lies just beneath the cold surface of her world. All she will see is beauty. The entire world in all its glory... | |
| She'll live, Mike, she'll live... | |
| With his ruined face pressed against the brush of the rug, Mike found he could smile. He would live out his remaining years in this cold darkness, and would never utter a word of any of this to anyone. He'd allow his own daughter to believe him insane and he'd push through what time he had left wrapped in the sanctuary of knowing she was safe from harm. It was a huge price to pay, but one a good father would never back down from. He'd proven his worth as a man and a daddy, even if the world would never know of it. And that would be his sacrifice - his small but vital victory over the newfound oppression that had torn his future from him with such ferocity and speed. | |
| "She'll live." He whispered into the darkness. | |
| "Yes, Michael. About that..." she said, in her ever-so concise and pristine voice. Letting the words hang in the air with cruel relish. | |
| Her... | |
| The reporter... | |
| The construct... | |
| The devil... | |
| Mike slowly raised his head in the direction of her voice, an instinctual action as prey seeks to maintain a visual on the approaching predator. The threat in her words tore through his soul like a razor-blade through a tendon. | |
| "What?" he implored. "Tell me!" | |
| "You see, Michael. It's been brought to my attention that there has been a slight indiscretion in the handling of your case. Your actions have proven very noble indeed, and we truly are thankful for your co-operation with our literal and figurative removal of your sight. The operation went swimmingly, and it really does appear you'll survive this trauma to fight another day, with the proper medical attention, of course. Alas, it pains me to report that there is a problem with our agreement..." | |
| "I – I don't understand." | |
| "I'm sure you do not. You are without doubt a man of your word, and a man most willing to sacrifice himself for the ones he loves. It's a rare trait, and one that makes men like you our most lethal opponents. People such as you inspire goodness in others. You would have gone on to do so yourself, had you been given the chance." | |
| "You've already taken it from me, you fucking monster!" he screamed. | |
| "Ah, you see, Michael, we haven't taken it completely as of yet. It's a widely regarded belief - among those in the higher echelons of our system - that goodness, temerity and, to coin a phrase, 'the will to be free', are traits that are often passed down from father to son." | |
| Mike's heart jack-hammered in his chest. | |
| "Or perhaps father to daughter..." | |
| No! | |
| "You can't do this!" he screamed into the darkness. | |
| "I understand your disappointment with our decision, but Rebecca is simply too great of a threat to us. In the future, with her inherent disapproval of the rules, she could perhaps rise to take arms against us. She would not be the first to have tried." | |
| I have to save her! Mike struggled to his feet, blindly searching for the front door to this obscenely violated prison cell he'd once called home. He found himself careening over the small wooden table sat before the television. Pain sliced through him with renewed vigour as his head collided hard with the wooden corner, and his nose split open with a sickening crack. | |
| He was utterly, pathetically helpless. Lost in the dark. | |
| He roared as a primal, impotent rage fought with a grief unlike any he'd ever known and the perfect blackness that would be forever his reality seemed to laugh at his pathetic attempts at rebellion. | |
| And the soulless, evil thing in the television laughed right along with it. | |
| "This has been a public service announcement to help reaffirm your belief that ignorance is bliss. We value your support here at Prism TV. Thank you and goodbye." | |
| The sound of static could not compete with Michael Echol's screams as he lay there, on the sodden, blood-soaked floor. | |
| And in the distance, a siren wailed, drawing ever closer. | |
| *** | |
| It is 11pm on the fifteenth of June, 2066, and on Filamore Drive all the children are asleep under light summer bed-sheets while their parents relax together on well-loved sofas wrapped in each other's arms - supping their ice-cold beers and staring into the cold digital luminance of their television screens... | |
| ⁂ | |
| [ DEVILS DAY ] | |
| [ PROLOGUE ] | |
| The roiling clouds break, revealing stars that seem to shiver in sympathy with the night. The autumn moon bleeds cold radiance on those gathered in the hollow. | |
| Torchlight casts dancing, capering shadows throughout the forest clearing, as the circle of figures gather in silence. | |
| In the centre of the circle – a girl on the cusp of womanhood huddles together with a much younger girl - only six years old. | |
| Dressed in only light garments that were worn as they were dragged from the comfort of their beds; they tremble not only from the harsh biting winds of the late October night, but from a deep and penetrating dread. | |
| They hold each other tightly as the cloaked and hooded figures watch and wait with terrible patience. | |
| The older girl is crying as she tries to calm the terrified child. | |
| The child shakes uncontrollably, untameable in her fear. Her eyes dart from face to face, discerning the familiar visages of people she has known and trusted her whole life. | |
| In her confusion she reaches out to the tallest of the figures. | |
| A man... | |
| His is a face she has loved as long as she can remember. | |
| He has bathed her. Read her bedtime tales and comforted her when her imagination has crept up from black places to drag her into its fearful depths. He has held her as she wept, tended to her hurts and to her ailments as she has grown. He has played games with her in the fervent woodlands that surround their home and taught her of all the wonders hiding in their quiet little corner of the world. | |
| In her father's eyes, she see's great sadness, and while she cannot understand it on any conscious level of thinking - she senses a terrible resolve. | |
| The promise of something unspeakable... | |
| She reaches out to him. | |
| The older girl loosens her desperate hold on the child only fleetingly as the young one implores with tiny, shaking hands to her father. | |
| He remains still. Tears run down his cheeks in rivers, though his face is solid stone. | |
| Even though she is so very young and until this moment she has lived her life as little more than perfect innocence and light, the girl is aware. | |
| She can feel the tremors pass through her guardian and instinctually she presses her face into the older girls breast, even now hoping to give comfort as much as receive it. | |
| She can hear her heartbeat pounding faster and faster as endless seconds pass and her fright envelops her. | |
| The child's eyes dance from her protector's warm chest to her father's shadow as it looms over them both. | |
| She turns her head and watches him as he moves forward and with a small, almost imperceptible nod, he summons the others in the circle to join him. | |
| Before she has time to think about what her father will do, she is torn by grasping, cold hands from the fragile sanctuary of the young woman's embrace. | |
| Her guardian screams. | |
| It is a sound unlike any the child has ever heard in her short, sweet life. | |
| In that anguished wail all the goodness in the world seems to wither and die. | |
| Rough hands grab at the older girl as the two are parted. | |
| The child's eyes are running with tears as she uselessly struggles with her captors and reaches out for the other, who seems a million miles adrift. | |
| One of the people holding her– a woman – puts a knife to her throat. | |
| The older girl screams. | |
| The child sees everything... | |
| The blade slides slowly across the girl's smooth, pale throat. | |
| A wash of red colours the flowered nightdress she wears, turning once beautiful blue and pink-embroidered flowers to ebony black. | |
| She sees the light fade from the young woman's eyes. | |
| And as the lifeless body of her only companion is allowed to fall unceremoniously to the wet woodland floor, the child's terror affords her its final lesson. | |
| She is alone. | |
| Her guardian is gone forever. | |
| And her father will not protect her. | |
| The purity of the betrayal cleaves hopeless furrows through her young heart. | |
| Still fighting, and with only desperate despair and terror left within her, she looks up at the man who was once and always her sanctuary. | |
| He reaches into the deep red folds of the cloak he wears. | |
| He removes a blade of his own, much longer than the other. | |
| It shines in the cold and unconcerned light of the harvest moon. | |
| She has no time to plead. Only time to search his eyes one last time for any sign of the perfect love the two have shared. | |
| She can still see his warmth fighting to break the surface, but in the witnessing of it, she knows that nothing more of grace will pass between them. | |
| The hands that hold her little body begin to tighten their vice-like grip with renewed vigour. She ceases her pitiful struggles at last. | |
| All is still. | |
| The forest that has so often sang its majestic song and captivated her heart seems to tremble in a fear of its own. But for the sound of her own hammering pulse, there is only dead silence. Nature herself has abandoned her. | |
| And then the voice of her father - "I'm so sorry, baby." | |
| He raises the blade above his head and plunges down with all his might, and she hears her own scream collide with the howl of despair that flees him like a damned spirit as the final tethers of his soul loosen all bonds with goodness. | |
| And in the eternity between the final beat of her heart and the cold kiss of the blade, she hears something else. | |
| Laughter... | |
| It is like no laughter she has ever heard before. | |
| It is cold, and ancient, and utterly maleficent. | |
| And then she hears nothing at all. |