The Blackness Within
Edited by Gill Ainsworth
This collection is a work of fiction. All of the characters and events portrayed in these stories are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.
The Blackness Within
Cover Art “Moccus” © 2010 by Stanley Morrison
Cover design © 2010 by Ken Lillie-Paetz
Cover lettering © 2010 by Marshall Dillon
“The New God, The New Order” copyright © 2010 by Gill Ainsworth; “Secrets of Fatima” copyright © 2010 by Steven L. Shrewsbury; “Without Mercy” copyright © 2010 by Lucas Pederson; “The Messiah of Mincemeat” copyright © 2010 by S. Clayton Rhodes; “Dreaming” copyright © 2010 by Brenton Tomlinson; “Daughter of God” copyright © 2010 by Maxwell Peterson; “The Free Poor” copyright © 2010 by Mark Grundy; “Bad Meat” copyright © 2010 by Michael Keyton; “Chain of Hearts” copyright © 2010 by Eric Gregory; “Big Game” copyright © 2010 by Conrad Zero; “Dance of the Psychopomps” copyright © 2010 by Joshua McCune; “Song-Ji and the Wolf” copyright © 2010 by Paul Williams; “For They Are As Beasts” copyright © 2010 by A. Camille Renwick; “Abattoir Blues” copyright © 2010 by Geoffrey W. Cole; “The Holy Meal” copyright © 2010 by Moccus Meats
All rights reserved
Apex Publications, LLC
PO Box 24323
Lexington, KY 40524
www.apexbookcompany.com
September 1st, 2010
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Published by Apex Publications at Smashwords
Table of Contents>
Introduction: The New God, The New Order
Gill Ainsworth
Part 1: THE APOSTLES
Steven L. Shrewsbury
Lucas Pederson
S. Clayton Rhodes
Brenton Tomlinson
Part 2: THE LIFE
Maxwell Peterson
Mark Grundy
Michael Keyton
Eric Gregory
Conrad Zero
Joshua McCune
Part 3: THE LEGACY
Paul Williams
Camille Alexa
Geoffrey W. Cole
Part 4: THE FOOD
Moccus Meats hlc
Gill Ainsworth
Introduction:
Gill Ainsworth, editor
Be warned. The following stories are not simply pages of fiction. They are, in fact, here to show what’s in store for mankind and his planet. But, like all prophecies, the ‘when’ is open to interpretation. Mankind may still have a few years’ grace. Enjoy them whilst you can.
Those who believe the following pages—and everyone should—will realise how high the price will be to secure the future. But, for the long-term survival of our planet, radical measures must be taken. However shocking they may seem, they will be in the planet’s best interests; a new, much-improved order will be created by the new God, Moccus.
He isn’t born naturally, but has any god ever been conceived into our world in a natural way? Natural is not the way of divinity, nor the way of Moccus. He comes into our world as all gods should: reborn through science. We live in a world of nanotechnology and Dolly the Sheep and, maybe even now, Moccus. From Europe to Africa, to Australasia and the Americas, no part of the world will escape His influence. Often harsh, never forgiving, He preaches His agenda: Earth’s fertility at all costs.
It’s perhaps befitting that Moccus should enter our world in a backwater—almost hamlet—in rural Herefordshire, England, where a black-and-white Tudor market house stands on stilts and leans even more than the Tower of Pisa. Lead shot buried deep within its oak beams bears testament to a Civil War when Bonnie Prince Charles escaped from Oliver Cromwell and the Roundheads. And, higher up on the Malvern Hills, the ancient ramparts of British Camp—built to defend followers of Moccus and His fellow Celtic Gods against the Roman invaders—stare down on the local Anglican Church. It’s a place where hop fields, orchards and yellow blankets of genetically engineered rape lie adjacent to pig farms; a market town that trades in livestock, sending animals to their slaughter to satisfy appetites. For this is the natural order of life and death, and the food chain. And Moccus has always embraced such things. Moccus, the ancient Celtic God of fertility, will save our planet from the fate mankind is inflicting upon it in this twenty-first century. But how much of humanity will survive?
Within these pages you will discover mankind’s future, learn how it will be for your children, your grandchildren, their progeny. You will become acquainted with the balance of nature and learn the fate of those who refuse to understand it. No part of the planet will be outside His influence, be immune to His powers. The future may not be easy, but it will, ultimately, be better for our planet.
So hope that your descendants adhere to His ways for, otherwise, your genetic future will not be secured. Bow to His ways and life will continue for your progeny.
For my father Jim Ainsworth
who sadly didn’t quite make it to see
The Blackness Within published
Part 1
The Apostles
By Steven L. Shrewsbury
“Long is the way
And hard, that out of Hell leads up to light”
—John Milton—
Paradise Lost, 1665
“Man, what a title, Les,” said Ronnie, as he read notes on the clipboard.
“Cool, eh?” Les responded, glancing up from the papers on his desk. He took a puff on a Cuban cigar and blew it in the direction of the potpourri cooker.
Ronnie read on, rubbed his large nose and chuckled. “Huh. You must want to go to Hell and not wait in line with a title and plot like this.”
The husky man behind the desk took a sip of mineral water and shot back, “If I was afraid of going to Hell, I wouldn’t be a porno movie producer.”
Ronnie raised his bottle of soda and said, “Salute.” He drank a mouthful and faced the page again. Ronnie read aloud, “The erotic tale of a hot Spanish girl who receives a revelation to seek out three new sexual experiences. Christ on a cracker, Les, I’m Italian and this kind of makes me queasy. Is Satan directing or only advising?”
“He gets a cameo, smart ass, or better yet, I could use one of my wife’s creepy pagan idols,” said Les. “You’re a lapsed Catholic, no?”
After he’d aped Groucho Marx with a cigar, Ronnie replied, “If I weren’t a lapsed Catholic, I’d be making Disney movies.”
“Highly unlikely,” said Les as he stood up, tapped the cigar on his tray, and put papers into his briefcase. “You failed film school at U.S.C.”
Ronnie sighed, but the slight from Les rolled off. “I was lucky enough to get a job working as a lighting tech on a porno flick in the early seventies. The rest is history, man. A minor role player, then logging several dozen porn flicks in the catalog before hitting my thirties, it was a blast and I’m comfortable with my fate.”
“Heh, and then talk to me of sacrilege; hell, that’s what they should call turning forty.”
Ronnie nodded, reflecting aloud, “Yeah, after that apex, I couldn’t orgasm on command as easily so I went into production. Since then, life’s sweet if sometimes kind of sour.”
Les walked out of his home-office and Ronnie followed him. As they strolled through Les Golden’s Bel Air mansion, Ronnie said, “Never ceases to amaze me, all of the old historical junk your wife collects.” He waved at the bizarre collection of art and artifacts decorating the hall and room they’d entered. “Some of this stuff is new, eh?”
“New to me. Don’t get me started. Whatever will shut her up. What’s with you and the title of the flick? Don’t tell me that you are getting a conscience, Ronnie?” Les jeered him, as they paused in an expansive living room. A single plush couch stretched along three walls and stopped only by a gigantic fireplace. The stone effigies from forgotten times adorned the brick walls. A woman of Mexican descent vacuumed the immaculate floor while a bald-headed Caucasian youth dusted several stone relics over the fireplace.
“Who, me?” Ronnie shot back. “Naw, I just thought it was an odd title.”
“Just being creative,” asserted Les with a smile, as he watched the tall boy carefully dust the stone relics. The older man almost trembled as the youth worked on an elongated stone head with a crude snout and protruding incisors.
“I know, but it seems like bad karma to make fun of religious stuff. I dunno. I guess I’m being an idiot.”
“The three Fatima girls, three sex experiences, good stuff, sticks in the mind as folks shop for a rental. That little hook is all we want.”
Ronnie perused the porn-flick ‘Menu’ on his clipboard and said, “Let’s see here. The three revelations are accomplished via sex with a black man, three-way lesbian sex, and a double-penetration scene. Huh. I’ll call the Vatican at once! I always wondered what Mary told those girls before World War One. Case closed?”
Les only smiled and watched the boy rubbing the stone idols. “Be careful, Karl. Those are from France and priceless.”
With flaring green eyes, the youth looked at the two middle-aged men. Ronnie almost took a step back at the stare, unnerved. Dryly he asked Les, “What are those?”
“Small effigies from overseas I just liberated from a piss-poor expedition student. A university that will remain nameless also got greased and will look the other way. I am king of finding such folk, even those digging around the headwaters of the Marne and Seine rivers. Money over art, ain’t the new millennium grand?”
“Terrific. Who says art is useless? He looks sort of piggish.”
“They are thousands of years old, I hear tell. Those are Moccus, the pig one, and Cerridwen, Celtic gods.”
Ronnie leaned in and squinted. “She looks like a white pig, eating people.”
Les shrugged. “I don’t understand all the mythology of it. Along with that big urn over there, it will add to the atmosphere of the house.”
Ronnie noted the waist-high stone urn and shrugged. “I guess. Some might say this house is a hodgepodge of bizarre styles and a tribute to tacky people with too much money.” Ronnie never continued his thoughts that said, It all added up to a tasteless home for a man in a tasteless business. As Les moved toward the door of the room, Ronnie touched the top of the urn. “Anything inside? I figured you might be using it for a big ash tray.”
“You wouldn’t like it,” said Les curtly.
Ronnie shrugged and followed him out of the room. He tried not to look at Karl, but he couldn’t resist. Karl stood by the urn, glaring at him. Behind his back, the wall held two gigantic swords, crossed, points down. They were older than medieval times and out of place with the rest of the decor. These blades framed the severe features of the boy too well.
Ronnie quickly exited the room and asked Les, “Where do you get your help?”
“Them? Oh, Esmeralda has been in my employ for years. Someday she might even be a citizen. Karl is helping this summer as a favor for his mother. She’s from Germany and in L.A. for the season. I guess she works in real movies.”
“Ya guess?”
“I’m giving him a job as a favor to my second wife. Throw them enough bones and they leave part of the skeleton. I don’t know all the details.”
Karl polished the top of the urn as Esmeralda left the room. He adjusted his thick black leather watchband on his left wrist, obscuring the tattooed letters ‘SS.’ Slowly, he lifted the round lid off the urn and squinted down into the darkness. Karl flipped on the rainbow colored ‘mood’ lights under the lip of the fireplace. The lights illuminated the belly of the urn. Karl thought he gazed at a series of tiny rocks inside of it. He puzzled over why they were all cracked open, then it struck him: none of them had sealed yet. They were a bunch of human skulls… those of infants.
Shaking as he put the lid back down on the urn, his eyes locked on the empty stare of Moccus. What kind of people are these!
The producer and director walked outside the home and climbed into Les’s convertible Corvette. Ronnie put on his black shades and commented, “That kid is kinda severe.”
Les lit a small cigar and stated, “I never noticed. He’s quiet and doesn’t speak English. A perfect addition, no?”
“What about the new flick?”
“The Secrets of Fatima thing? Oh, we start filming it this afternoon. We’d begin sooner, but you know how hard it is to get all them studs and sluts out of bed by noon.”
Ronnie took another drink of his soda and inquired, “Which warehouse you filming in?”
“6B. They are filming Part III of American Anal Assassins in 6A. Besides, the air conditioning is better in 6B.”
Ronnie nodded. “No outside shots for the Secrets of Fatima?”
“Hell no. This is nothing really special, Ron, just standard issue flick except for the star because we swung Maria Maxi from WETTT Pictures.”
Ronnie coughed and rubbed his temples, trying to get the leer from Karl out of his head. “She’s a good one,” was his assessment. “Maria is the twenty year old, racially mixed daughter of a Mexican immigrant and a white stripper from Palo Alto.”
“Do tell?” Les muttered, unconcerned.
Ronnie shrugged. “Yeah. In two years, she has become a porn vet. I like working with her because she has a good attitude and isn’t really stuck on herself.” He made a grandiose gesture with his arms spread wide. “I know ‘em all for porn is my life.”
“We got a real steal from WETTT Pictures.” Les glowed with pride. “They never farm out their people.”
“Maria piss off the management over there?” Ronnie asked as the warm wind brushed back his curly hair, and a chill ran through his scalp from the recollection of Moccus’s face.
“Not that I know. She had her boobs bumped up to thirty-eights last winter.” Les fished a pair of grey capsules out of his pocket and swallowed them. Ronnie assumed they were the latest rage pills in Hollywood—a herbal substitute for Viagra. Les wasn’t impotent that Ronnie knew of, but several men took the herb just to have more fun.
“Oh?” Ronnie mentally pictured Maria again. “She was kinda big anyway.”
“Maria went in for a little liposuction and a chin implant so they did her tits over as well. One has gotta love technology in this enlightened age, Ron. A woman is a lot like a car: get an average one, get a new rear end and front end put on them and bam! You have a great new ride.”
Ronnie rubbed his chin. “It’ll be nice to see her, though. She is a funny gal and not too much of a nose problem.”
Maria’s real name was Hortensia Morales. No one had a real name in this business. The stud for Les Golden’s ROCK-HARD CAFE Pictures was Texan Miles Long, a twenty-eight-year-old fellow named Howard Roberts by his mother. Everyone was someone else, everyone, a work of fiction in the business.
“I wonder what the real Secrets of Fatima really were?” Ronnie wondered aloud as he gazed in the direction of the coast.
“Are you high? Get off it, man. I don’t know and don’t care what a bunch of stupid kids say the Virgin Mary said.”
“The end of the damned world.” Ronnie smiled in earnest. “That’s what they said, I think. Ever wonder what you would do if you knew when the world was gonna end?”
“Yeah. I’d go do some porn stars.” Les threw his smoke away. “All that freaking religion crap is nothing to me. My old lady is the one into all the magic and stupid idols. It keeps her busy and out of my hair.”
They arrived at studio-cum-warehouse 6B, ordered egg rolls, and waited for the stars to show up. Miles Long, the dark, rangy Texan rode up on his Harley Heritage Softail. He waved at the director and the producer, then hit the showers. Next came the real-life husband-and-wife team of Dave and Nadine Willis. Their screen names were John and Joan Black, fitting with their race. While he worked with everyone female, she only appeared with him and women in the flicks. Ronnie took mild amusement at their sense of morality, but appreciated Nadine’s screaming ability and sloppy eating habits.
Les glanced at his clipboard and sighed. “Betsy Breeze is being true to her nature. The bitch left a message saying she would be late.” He didn’t sound worried. In case of a no-show, a young gopher or fluffer on the set—part-time natural-blonde starlet named Fanny Wells—would fill in. She received several roles covering for late-arriving prima donna porn stars. Fanny had no drug problem, so she was around more to help pay for college classes. Fanny was pre-med.
As several people arranged lights and background scenes, Maria Maxi walked into the studio, wearing a green striped tank top, denim skirt, and sneakers. She waved and smiled at everyone.
“Hi Ronnie!” said Maria, a cheery grin lighting up her dark features. Maria gave Les a wink and hit the showers. Ronnie watched her bounce along and marveled at how a reasonably nice gal like her got into a rotten place like this.
Dick Lower and Joe Hardman (their real names) arrived in the same 1990 tan Buick Skylark. They were two white men in their mid-twenties each having bleach-blond hair and good beach-bum bodies. They were the double-penetration boys and they always worked together on various girls. Ronnie knew they were consummate professionals. Les looked at his watch, wishing he had the DP boys’ patience.
“Well, Ron, dress them up and do the black-guy scene. If Betsy doesn’t show up after Maria takes her second shower… I don’t know. I hate to ask her to do the double-penetration after doing John Black.”
Ronnie shrugged, as John Black and his wife emerged from their showers. The tall black man walked over to wardrobe and donned a Middle Eastern djnni outfit. Maria exited her shower stall and put on clothes of a harem girl. She cooed at the silky veils and golden fans, even slapped Fanny on the fanny with one. Ronnie hit the lights and checked the videotape. They made up some quaint dialogue, hit the dry ice for a magical djnni appearance and shot the first frame.
As the scene neared its climax, Les’s wife arrived in the warehouse. A tall, voluptuous bleach-blonde woman, Eva Golden’s own modeling career had been cut short by an emergency C-section ten years ago. Eva’s life was now very full... of books, drugs and sex. The woman had everything in life she’d ever wanted, yet nothing of real substance.
“Lester,” she whispered to her husband, as John Black flipped Maria Maxi over on the bedroll, “Did you remember to take your pills?”
Les nodded and put his index finger to his lips.
Eva glanced at the scene before her and faked a yawn. “I have a special flick for us tonight,” she promised her husband.
Les sighed and waved her off. Ronnie rolled his eyes at Lester’s current wife and her eccentric New Age tastes. Her lusts were getting out of the realm of normal perversion. Ronnie buried a grin as he thought of a regular film of her life he’d call Jaded. He wished the shivers would stop. At first, Ronnie thought it an after-effect of some blow from the previous night, but the images of Moccus and his bride kept returning, even in the porn shoot.
He saw Joan Black look up from her magazine as her husband went wild on Maria, but her gaze rested on Eva. Ronnie hoped the screwy woman wouldn’t notice Joan’s look of disgust or there would be trouble. The women on the set sometimes fought like cats and cats.
John Black finished on cue, delivering the money-shot facial. Ronnie slapped his hands and sang out, “Cut, folks!” The small crew gave out a brief round of applause as Maria stood, face awash in semen, and performed a little bow. Joan Black read her magazine again, bored.
“Betsy show up yet?” Ronnie questioned Fanny.
She shook her blonde head from side to side and Ronnie pointed at the showers. Fanny nodded and started to pull off her pink T-shirt.
Miles Long had changed out of his jeans and tank top into khaki shorts and a Hawaiian shirt. He read Sports Illustrated while Maria and Fanny showered. Joan Black changed into her white nylons and blue baby doll while the stagehands changed the scene to a massage parlor.
“Anything new, Miles?” Eva asked the reclining porn star, as she walked away from the set. Ronnie saw that Miles ignored her as he always did. Ronnie thought she was bigger trash than the women he slept with to make tons of money. Besides, on this day Miles Long would earn his money by masturbating over a lesbian scene.
Eva went into a small bathroom in the warehouse and locked the door. After she’d taken her lipstick out and drawn a five-pointed star on the interior of the toilet bowl, Eva took a tiny stone object out of her purse. Her lips kissed it wet, then she winked at the miniature image of Moccus. She placed Moccus in the toilet bowl. She sat, urinated on it, and got back up. Eva reached right into the bowl and placed the wet stone effigy in a plastic, zip-lock bag. After wrapping the plastic tightly around the stone, she put Moccus back into her purse, reapplied her lipstick with a different tube, and left.
When Eva exited the set, Maria Maxi hurriedly ran into the bathroom and sat down. As she peed, her body trembled, but she thought nothing of it. Her nerves often teetered on the edge before a lesbian performance. When she got up and flushed, she glanced down at the bowl. Maria shook her head in disgust. “Crazy bitch,” she said, referring to Les Golden’s wife. She was drawing in the bowl again. “Must be a chore to be married to that goof.”
There was no way for Maria Maxi to know that this was the last time in her life she would ever take a leak.
Les Golden left the set with his wife. Since she hadn’t gotten out of bed until after noon, Eva was hungry. Les had agreed to go along to the restaurant as the second sex scene had ground to a halt. The set took an hour break. The DP boys were napping on the same couch crossways from each other. Miles Long dressed, climbed on his Harley and left. Maria Maxi donned a pink jumpsuit, got into her car and headed down the street to buy her sister (who lived in Costa Mesa) a leather jacket at a factory outlet mall.
And died.
Eva ate pasta and sipped red port wine as Les’s cell-phone rang.
“Yeah? What? She’s not back? Hell, you don’t need me down there to run the joint, Ronnie. She’ll turn up.”
After they had finished eating, the two headed back to their home. As the car sped on, Les’s phone rang again. “Ronnie? Maria back yet?”
“No,” Ronnie replied somberly. “She won’t be coming back.”
“Say what?”
Ronnie told Les how Maria’s driver’s side wheels had both blown out or come off her car. The cops weren’t certain which. At any rate, the car rolled out of control and threw Maria free. Well, most of her. Her left arm was sliced off at the mid-bicep on the car door as she flew through the air. A chain link fence with a barbwire top had beheaded her.
Les Golden drove in silence. He stared at the highway and just couldn’t find the words. His wife filed her right middle fingernail, then scraped at the interior of her right nostril with it. She glanced at her husband and quizzed, “Bad news?”
He ignored her and said to Ronnie, “I’ll call you from the house in a few minutes. I must think.”
Ronnie hung up the phone and told the DP boys to move on. They shrugged and left. They had a night shoot at 2 a.m. in Burbank anyway. Ronnie walked across the set to the toilet in numbed shock. Maria had been the best in the business... at that moment. The old saying was Porn stars come and go. Cruel but true. Maria was replaceable in a business like this, but Ronnie still had to shut the door of the crapper to conceal his tears.
His phone rang again and he twitched. “Yeah, what?”
“Ron? Les here,” the producer said in a cheery voice. “Look, man, wrap the film and lock it up. The more I think about it the more I like the idea of this movie.”
“Come again?”
“Think of it! Maria Maxi’s last flick! We have two scenes to build around. Screw the Fatima angle… well, maybe not. I have to think about this more. We could be looking at a major seller here.”
“You’re all heart, man,” Ronnie muttered dryly, as he turned toward the mirror and didn’t like what he saw. He closed his eyes and tried to find his courage.
“Well, handle it all down there, Ron. I trust you.”
“Wait a minute! What in the hell will you be doing? The cops might want a statement from you.”
“For what? What did either of us have to do with her death? She didn’t even take drugs. Funny thing, really.” Les turned off his phone.
Ronnie put his phone on the edge of the sink and sat on the stool. He ran his fingers through his curly black hair and stared down. Ronnie saw a smudge of scarlet lipstick on the edge of the bowl. He got up, looked in the bowl, shook his head and pronounced, “Stupid bitch and her witch games.”
Eva wasn’t a real witch of any kind, just a player at New Age junk. The Goldens were atheists, but he knew that he himself believed in a God, a Devil... all of that. Ronnie had refused to let a girl wear a cross in a blow-job scene once. He just thought it bad luck. He was very superstitious. Who wasn’t? He was sure Reverend Franklin Graham knocked wood every now and then. Bad luck, bad karma... what goes around...
What is that damned Eva Golden into? Ronnie’s heart raced, as he tried to fight down his thoughts. Had she pissed off something? Someone? God? The Devil... A devil? It was crazy. None of that stuff was real... but… the image of that pig god, Moccus, kept returning to his mind.
What goes around comes around… that was older than the Bible, he wagered. Sow to the wind long enough and one gets a tornado. Like a tornado, the storm crushes everything in its path, trailer trash and all, to get where it’s going. Was this heading to Eva? Ronnie remembered that Maria went into the bathroom before the last scene, and he jumped up. He bolted out of the room, then reached back in for his phone. He stabbed at the numbers on it, hoping to reach Les.
Why? What was he going to tell him? That his whacked-out wife had caused Maria Maxi to be decapitated by rubbing lipstick in the toilet? That sounded nuts. Ronnie lost his nerve as the phone kept ringing. He eventually got the answer service, but left no message. Was he being crazy? Probably.
Ronnie decided to get drunk and forget. He made sure the film tapes of Maria Maxi were safe in his possession, as he called for a ride.
Oddly, he thought of burning the tapes.
Earlier in the day, Karl and Esmeralda had cleaned out Les Golden’s study. They’d found the liquor cabinet unlocked so helped themselves to some vodka. As she mixed the screwdrivers, Esmeralda tried to tell Karl that the Golden’s preferred the bottles in the front—the Bourbon, the Scotch—to the Vodka in back. Karl grinned as she poured water into the vodka bottle to refill it. When she went on to do the kitchen work, Karl sampled the Scotch and liked it.
By evening, Esmeralda departed and Karl forgot to go home. He’d gotten ripped on brandy and wandered about the huge home. He eyed the idols on the mantle and shook his head as he left that room. After finding a DVD-VCR and porno material in the Golden’s master bedroom, Karl settled down to view them. He was watching one when the two decadent Americans came home, so he ran downstairs and hid in the one place they’d never go. In the laundry room, he felt safe. Karl settled in, figuring he’d wait them out a couple hours and then sneak out.
He fell asleep on the floor next to the dryer. A wicked thunderclap snapped him awake three hours later. He then heard soft, classical music filtering throughout the house. Karl only knew the works of Richard Wagner classical-wise. With great care, he crept out of the laundry room and into the kitchen. The music came from the big room with the fireplace, idols, and collector weapons. He was about to head for the door when he heard several deep, guttural moans coming from the room. Karl listened for a while and heard a male and female voice, but another set of voices was there, too, speaking German…
He slipped up the stairs and saw that the door to this room was cracked open. Opposite the entrance were two sliding glass doors that led to a terrace on the beach. It sounded as if a bad storm raged outside. A long, white screen covered these doors. On the screen flipped a grainy black and white film. Rage filled Karl, as he saw a grown man having sex with what looked like an animal... then shoot the beast in the head... and keep pumping away. The voices in the film were German and Karl wished he couldn’t understand the words. He’d heard of snuff films but thought they were stories. Karl also knew he was very wrong about something else: he had thought he couldn’t think any less of these two Americans.
Eva wore a leather corset, silver bullet bra and thigh-high black leather boots. She’d tied her husband to the fireplace by his wrists on long dog chains. On his knees facing the two stone idols over the fireplace, Les couldn’t see them. A black leather hood sheathed his face. A tiny chain connected a dog collar on his neck to his ankles. Around his neck hung a tiny stone object. Karl thought it a smaller version of the piggish idol Moccus. As Eva wielded a riding crop on Les’s back, her eyes stared at the movie screen. She jumped a little as something banged on the glass of the terrace doors.
This startled Karl as well. He told himself the same thing Eva probably told herself: it was a branch... something blown up by the storm. When the glass shattered, both of them jumped again and Les tried to react to what had happened but couldn’t.
Eva staggered back and faced the double doors. The storm grew much louder, thundering its wrath into the room. A sudden blast of wind smashed more of the glass out. The snuff film ran off of the spools of the eight-millimeter projector, but the white light still illuminated the wavering screen.
“Christ, Eva!” Les yelled. “Let me go!”
Karl licked his lips and decided to leave, but froze in his tracks as another large gust of wind blew the screen up and over toward the fireplace. The edge of the screen grazed the graven image of Cerridwen, consort of the God, Moccus. Cerridwen teetered and fell over against its mate. Moccus swayed back and forth, and then fell forward with its mate. Then Moccus bounced off Les’s head, Cerridwen off his right shoulder. Moccus smashed down on the edge of the riser leading to the fireplace. Its mate bounced once on the same riser on the other side, then split in half as it hit the floor.
As the screen fell back down across the doorway, Eva stared down at her smashed idols and screamed. She shrieked so long that Karl thought she must have possessed five lungs. On the contrary, his heart raced and Karl could hardly breathe. He tried to run, but his legs snapped down after he had moved only a few inches. Karl’s eyes glanced into the room, but he could only be riveted to the screen. The crazy bitch clamoring over her shattered idols didn’t even notice that a shadow formed behind the screen.
Karl thought someone stood on the terrace in the din of the storm.
Eva stumbled over to the pieces of the idols and kept screaming. She accidentally stepped on a few of the pieces and crushed them further. This didn’t help her mood. Karl saw her spiked heels stumble on a tiny glass vial rolling amongst the debris. The vial from Moccus oozed an eerie, green glow. Eva stepped on it. The tiny tube broke apart just as its idol-shell casings had. Karl wasn’t sure if Eva saw it, but he noticed a green mist inside of the vial disperse in the rushing wind.
While this happened, Karl grew certain the shadow on the movie screen was that of a human. His eyes closed when a sudden wave of agony swept over him. He staggered against the door and fell into the room, feeling as if he’d been doused in acid. The feeling of agonizing fire spilled onto his head and flowed throughout his body. Eva now noted his presence, watched him roll on the floor and tremble violently. Karl shook so badly that he gave the impression he might vibrate to pieces. She gaped as his skin rippled and expanded. When his clothing began to shred to ribbons, Eva couldn’t find her voice to holler.
Eva backed up and ran into her chained husband. Her ankles twisted together and she fell backwards over him. When Eva rose up, she was face to face with the screen. A humanoid form stood behind the screen. She glanced back at the writhing body of her husband, yet couldn’t help but turn back to the houseboy. The image at the terrace wasn’t as interesting as the form that Karl was taking. His nude body glowed a deep red as if blood flowed from all over his body and boiled.
Karl leapt to his feet and howled in a voice so deep that it came from far, far away. After his bald scalp had sprouted a mane of blond hair and his body had gained a hundred pounds of muscle mass, Eva let out a dry yelp. Her drug addled heart raced at the sight of the gigantic, nude creation that stood in front of her. Karl was no longer thin, green eyed... or Karl. His body rippled with primal energy, raw instinct and husky brawn. Eva appeared horrified as his jaws lengthened and large tusks extended from his jowls. She stared, intrigued.
What used to be Karl blinked several times, then looked down at his massive hands. The long digits flexed, popped, surged and clicked heavy nails together. Through his fingers, sullen eyes saw the shattered pieces of the idol of Moccus. Deep in his throat, a groaning roar arose, then he leapt forward. Stomping on the tiny pieces with his bare feet, pain shot up his legs but it was a good kind of hurt. It reminded him that he was alive... again.
“Who are you!” Eva screamed, trying not to gawk at the image growing in the doorway.
The seething giant heard her words but didn’t comprehend the language. So high ran the terror in her heart that Eva did something that used to reassure her as a child. Eva made the sign of the cross almost without knowing it. The movements meant nothing to the giant. He’d been born centuries before anyone ever knew of Jesus Christ. As his heart slowed down, his instincts drank in the scene. The being from a past age looked about the room at the idols in pieces, the swords on the wall, the people on the floor... and at the apparition outside of the sliding doors. He comprehended the state of things perfectly.
This woman before him had blonde hair on her head but dark hair on her private parts. The man at her feet was chained like a dog. Then, in a wild flash, he recalled who he was.
Taloric! His name was Taloric, birthed to a women long ago by his father, Moccus. The last real thoughts he’d had were of roving the southern regions of the world... south of his snowy home at the bidding of his father. He slew so many, but in time the red breasted little men overcame him. These little men babbled to gods Taloric had never heard of, yet he had fulfilled the edict of his father God, Moccus. He’d slain many. Now, his father called on him again. Time was different, but he could sense his father, far away, and alive. While most of his tribe had died, pieces must march on. Pride swelled in his huge chest that so many of the little men had died at the hands of so few of his brethren. They’d lost a legion because of him. Taloric remembered that his pieces had been burnt in a magical ceremony at Shropshire. His flesh burned but his spirit stayed in stasis, comatose for eons.
Taloric didn’t hesitate to grab one of the huge broadswords off the wall near the fireplace. Though heavy, it felt good in his hands. He ground his teeth together at the feeling. The fake-blonde woman squealed again and kept doing so even as Taloric swung the sword and separated her head from her neck. The head flew off her shoulders and bounced off the mantle of the fireplace, then plopped onto her husband’s back. The woman took a single step, wobbled and fell backward as clear and scarlet fluids gouted from her neck.
“Eva?” the chained man said, confused and ignorant of what happened about him. He felt the pulsing sprays from his wife that grew fainter with every splash.
Taloric growled in a deep voice, blessing the heavy blade he wielded before taking the handle in both hands. His hands touched the blade and found it reasonably dull. It would suffice until he could hone it. In an instant, he swung the blade down and sliced Les Golden in half at the pit of his back. Les gagged, grunted, and puked as his intestines unraveled.
Taloric breathed heavily as he stared at the image in the doorway. He felt no fear as he slashed the sword in a loop, slicing the screen free of the roll so he could see what lay beyond.
The image of a headless woman stood in the doorway. She glowed with an ethereal emerald light. Taloric sensed no real threat to his own person from this spirit. His mind puzzled as to why this ghost carried its head under its right arm. He then noticed that she had only half of a left arm.
The big man lowered his sword and peered down at his own form. He had a hint of a green glow about himself. Was he a spirit as well? No. He had flesh, a breathing body well enough. Nevertheless, Taloric reached out to the ghost and felt her supple shape. The massive hand ran down her arm and clenched her dark hair. Taloric pulled her head free from her grasp. The face on the dark head wore a rather shocked expression. He placed the head back on her shoulders.
The girl was afraid, full of terror and quite stunned. Her head stayed in place and her eyes fixed on the gigantic warrior. Then she cried.
Taloric wondered what had brought this spirit to this place. Had her spirit been wandering until it found the home of a familiar person? Taloric puzzled at her ever-changing form.
The spirit wept, but no tears came. Taloric’s eyes saw her shape dim in its glow and grow more transparent. He then saw several long shapes slither up from the boards of the terrace. As he took up a defensive posture, the shapes solidified into reptilian, scaled tentacles. These long tendrils coiled about the spirit’s legs and worked about her waist. She screamed the howl of the damned as she rocketed downward into oblivion.
Taloric peered over the terrace at the wooden boards. The girl was gone. Taloric recalled his father’s unrepentant, unshakable savagery. The God preached that one made one’s own life. This girl must have earned damnation. Taloric sighed as he looked into the evening air and the storm. He thought of his own new life and of his escape. What had he earned?
A high-pitched whine cut through the air behind him. He twisted about and saw a tiny black object lying on the coffee table, whining. Taloric crossed the room and kicked the glass table over. Standing over the tiny object he heard a human voice—such things were madness. What kind of demons were these. Their gods were everywhere. Taloric stomped on the object.
He leapt over the terrace and landed in the grass. As he jogged through the expansive back yards in the rain, his mind raced. What had he earned? Why had the gods let him be bound inside the idol of Moccus? It was his own fault that he’d fallen victim to the Romans. His own weaknesses had doomed him to the imprisonment, not the wrath or whims of Lugh of the Shining Spear. Now what was he to do?
Eventually he found some low hills that overlooked a vast area of bizarre lights. For now, he had to think and listen for his father. When the storm cleared, he saw the stars above were in no position that he recalled. Home was far away, but his people were used to roving, rambling and conquering.
Taloric decided he had been granted the blessed boon of life. Wherever he was, whenever he was, Taloric knew he had another chance.
Thanking all the gods above him, Taloric smiled and remembered the face of his father, Moccus.
He then smelled the swarming bodies down below him and felt so hungry.
By Lucas Pederson
A dank breeze like the sour, rancid breath of something dying swept through Narok.
Eddies of red Kenyan dust swirled, as it drifted along roads, between ramshackle buildings and mud huts, darkened the façades of slumbering tourist markets.
It twisted its putrid fingernails into the few simple locks, nudged doors and animal skins aside, slipped silently through sleeping homes. It slithered across faces of young and old alike. Some wrinkled their noses, some cried, but most screamed in their sleep as this foul interloper caressed their sweat-drenched skin with cold, hungry claws.
Then it subsided; although it did not go away entirely. And the people slept on without knowledge of what had entered their quiet town. They continued dreaming, their nightmares growing more intense, and still they slept.
The human monsters, the criminals and madmen, for this old town also harbored such, shivered in their beds, not from the cold breeze but from nightmares.
Eadie lit a roll-your-own cigarette, jetted smoke out both nostrils, then tossed the blood-stained machete onto the wooden table. For a moment the table wobbled, as the knife skittered across its surface, and then the blade bit into wood, another scar added to the already splintered surface.
He’d taken the machete to bed with him again. Blood and all, he’d slept with it like a lover. Now, cigarette clamped between his lips and smoke wafting before his bloodshot eyes, he stared at it for a long time without moving.
The first rays of the morning sun began sifting onto the dirt floor from the shack’s only window.
He closed his eyes.
His body jerked as images shot through his brain. Images of the woman, the machete sliding across her face and over the bridge of her nose, cheek to cheek, as he thrust his hard penis into her.
He watched the machete cut away the flesh of her stomach, flay through muscle and connective tissue. And when her body went limp, he climaxed.
The images shuffled, and now here was his mother, her face twisted with a mixture of revulsion and ecstasy. Her hand shot off of the stained mattress, slapped his face.
“Not like that, you freak,” she screamed at him in her native Narok tongue, as she continued romping vigorously. “Like this!”
Then the images vanished, leaving Eadie to sway on his feet.
“Fuck,” he muttered, using his favorite English word.
His eyes opened. Morning and he still hadn’t gotten rid of the body.
Last night had been awful. Trying to sleep, one nightmare after another, each as hideous as the one before; a rolling wheel of endless horrors, mostly where his mother both hurt and pleasured him time and again.
Upon waking, he’d been cold. His shack had reeked of dead fish, and the door had been open.
But there was the dead woman to think about now. He’d have to bury her body before it started to stink as badly as the dead-fish smell had. Already, flies were buzzing around his hut.
Eadie dropped the remains of his cigarette on the dirt floor and turned to the dead woman. His eyes widened.
Zarha, he could remember her name, lay in the farthest and darkest corner next to his secret well, a limp heap of crumpled bloody rags. But he couldn’t remember putting her clothes back on. Nor shoving her into the corner.
He raped the women he killed, never knowing exactly why but always feeling horrible afterwards. Yet he loved to see them in pain, as so many of them had given him pain. How they laughed at him and refused to marry him.
He couldn’t break their hearts so, instead, he cut them out.
Eadie walked over to the heap of a woman and wafted away the flies. The ones not besotted with her bloody gashes flew off only to return moments later. Others stayed, engorging themselves on body fluids.
I thought you’d be the one to take away my pain. But you didn’t. You denied me. Laughed when your hand stole into my pants. He knew why though. She’d been no different from the rest.
His hands clenched into tight fists, fingernails biting into the tender pads of his palms.
How did her clothes get back on?
Zarha, or the body of Zarha, sucked in a raspy breath. Her ruined remains shuddered violently.
Eadie stumbled away, heart quickening.
Now her arms jerked this way and that, her head smacking against the packed dirt, cracking the skull hard enough for grey matter to leak onto the floor, offering the flies a new place to lay their eggs.
Still backing away from her, he gasped. “You are alive?” he stuttered.
She flopped onto her back. Blood stained the front of her tattered dress a dark crimson. Dark skin hung in ragged flaps on her face. One eyeball lay dangling along the side of a bloody cheek, attached only by strands of scarlet thread. A black mass of flies squirmed inside the loose flaps of skin. But worse was the empty eye socket. Eadie swallowed bile at the sight of the insects crawling around, sucking up fluid.
A low whine issued from the gaping hole of Zarha’s mouth. Then, in a twitching, jerking motion, she sat up. Her head, which had been lolling to one side, rose up to stare at Eadie, then fell again. But it still faced him. Her one good eye, now bulging from its raw socket, glared at him.
“Eadie.” His name gurgled from her mouth; in their native accent, it came out as Eedee. But it wasn’t her voice. It was something else. Deep, resonant, it seemed to echo off the mud floor and walls.
His gaze strayed to the machete on the table, ready and freshly sharpened for her disposal. He turned slightly, started toward it, and she rose to her fleshless feet as if pulled up by unseen strings: a wretched marionette, the puppet-master an invisible fiend. She stopped. Then took a shaky step closer. The flies came with her. Now she reminded him of a voodoo doll brought to life. Her head began flopping from side to side.
“Eadie,” she said again.
“You dead,” he shouted in English. Speaking the language of mzungu made him feel brave. Not brave like facing a lion, but brave like he’d seen the white man confront evil spirits. “I kill you! You dead!”
The thing shuffled closer, movements like impulsive spasms. Dark laughter spewed from its bloody mouth, a sick, mocking laughter.
He moved toward the machete again. But the thing that used to be Zarha darted at him with uncanny speed. They collided, its wet, cold body crashing into his, sending up a cloud of flies and driving him to the floor.
It writhed on top of him, panting, its breath like something long-dead turned to a rank soup under the hot sun. He twisted away, gasping for fresh air but not finding any. Broken fingernails clawed at his neck.
Eadie screamed, bucked the creature off of him. He scrambled to his feet, using the wobbly battered table to pull him up. Blood trickled down his neck, soaking the thin white shirt he wore.
Then he saw the machete and hefted it from the table. He turned—
A hand more like a claw swiped at his face, gouging ravines into his cheek. The body, the creature, was on its knees, attempting to stand.
Eadie recoiled, and the creature squealed. Instinctively, he shot out a foot, kicked it hard in the chest. For a moment it teetered, then it fell to the floor.
Now was his chance. Machete poised above his head, he charged.
But suddenly it was on two feet.
Too fast! Much too fast!
He allowed himself no more time to think. Swung the machete, buried the blade deep into the flesh between right shoulder and neck. Yelling nonsensically, he pulled it free. The thing lurched back, hands clasped to the wound. There was no blood. And no flies to lick it, Eadie suddenly realized. They had gone.
He swung again, this time his aim was true. The honed blade swept horizontally, lopping off the mangled head. It flew into the dark shadows, bounced once and then came to rest against a wall.
Eadie gave a triumphant shout, backing away as the headless body convulsed, dropped to its knees, and finally crumpled onto its chest. Stayed there.
“Fuck,” Eadie muttered, and dashed past the body toward the open door, machete still in hand.
He’d taken three steps when he heard a series of wet snapping sounds.
He halted, his breath catching in his throat like a wad of dry bread. Wet snapping sounds drilled into his brain and consumed his thoughts. Slowly, he turned to the dreadful noises.
Zarha’s headless body jittered on the packed dirt. Her back arched, bulging toward the ceiling. Her arms flailed, her hands slapped at the floor. Then a large hump began growing out of her back. Too scared to move, Eadie gawped, as it grew bigger. Bigger still. Zarha’s blouse—once a bright tie-dye mixture of reds and greens but now a dirty brown from dried blood—split open. A crack as her spine snapped to allow the hump to lengthen. The smooth chocolate-colored skin stretched, took on the sheen of oiled and polished mahogany.
Then silence. Whatever was happening to Zarha’s body had stopped. Eadie stared at the growth, hands tightening on his machete handle. It stood nearly four feet tall. And something was moving inside it, just beneath the stretched skin, something that looked like a huge moth inside a cocoon.
A breeze licked the side of Eadie’s sweat-drenched face. That dead fish stink again, but much stronger now. His nose wrinkled, the corners of his mouth turned down.
A wet ripping sound.
Eadie’s heart stopped for a breath’s length, and then it began beating double time.
A long black hook, or at least that was what he thought it must be, protruded from Zarha’s skin and slowly slid upward. Flesh parted like astonished lips. The black hook reached the top of the bulge, then slipped back inside.
Something growled.
“I am Moccus,” whispered a voice on the breeze. Eadie heard it in two languages: Kiswahili and English. And other words he didn’t recognize fuzzed in the background.
“Witchcraft. Someone make bad magic on you, Zarha-bitch.” This time mzungu words didn’t make him feel brave. He wanted to run, but his whole body trembled too much for his muscles to work. He wasn’t a warrior. He didn’t know how to fight let alone confront something that spoke on the breeze in many languages.
More black hooks appeared out of the long slit in the skin, and Eadie realized they were not hooks at all. They were talons. And, as the talons parted the skin, he saw claws attached to them.
A ragged snout peered through the flesh, followed by long teeth that looked like weathered tusks. They pointed upward from a broad lower jaw.
The head, not-quite a warthog but close, glared at him. Its slanted red eyes flashed. It made a deep, slobbery grunt and tore away the skin cocoon. A hunched beast, covered in wet bristly fur stepped out of the mess that used to be a woman. Its sharp black hooves scuffed the dirt floor.
“Fuck,” Eadie whispered. “Tafadhali, no mganga magic. I will be good boy. I promise no more bad things.”
A pair of leathery wings unfurled behind the creature and it let loose a loud guttural roar. The wings stretched, flapped once, and then disappeared behind the monster’s large shoulders.
“I need you,” whispered the voice of the creature.
The breeze bringing the words sent a chill through Eadie.
The creature made as if to charge.
Eadie edged to the open door and, machete in hand, burst out into a morning without a sun.
The sky swirled with dark grey clouds, and streaks of red lightning licked the ground.
He stopped and stared at the sky. Only a few moments ago, early-morning sunlight had streamed into his home just as it did every morning; the chill of night burning away in the glow of the rising sun.
Now the chill had returned, and it cavorted with a stench so vile it forced his throat to work overtime.
A roar louder than a lion exploded in the rank air. He turned just sufficiently to see the hog-creature emerge from the shadows of the off-kilter doorway of Eadie’s shack.
He spun away from it and sprinted across the rusty-red dirt road to a small concrete home. His neighbor. He pounded on the door. No answer.
“They are all gone,” the voice of the demon whispered on the air. “All mine.” A dry chuckle and then: “Heed, my minion, and be spared.”
As if to punctuate the point, the monster behind Eadie gave another loud roar.
Heart hammering, he turned to the right and ran. Heed an evil spirit? Only a crazy white man would confront a demon.
On his left, the community well stood with its hordes of mosquitoes and bloated black flies. As he passed, he caught a whiff of its familiar putrescence and his stomach lurched. He never drank from that well. Unknown to the rest of the town, he’d dug his own well inside his shack.
But, however awful the disgusting water smelled, it paled utterly compared to the dead-fish-soup odor that swept through the air.
He ran, bare feet slapping the dirt road and sending up puffs of red dust. The road was empty, the town silent. Where had everyone fled to? Could the voice be right? Was everyone gone? And if they were, where had they gone?
One thing he did know: he needed to get off of the road.
He headed for a small patch of grass and the sparse bush that bordered the southern part of Narok.
There were no sounds behind him now, but he still wouldn’t stop. Couldn’t risk it. Better to keep running. Let the thing back there chase him if it wanted, as long as it remained far enough behind so that when he started to flag there’d be time to find a place to hide.
Sucking in the air, his lungs felt as if they were on fire, and his legs were rubbery. His breathing, quick and heavy, tore at his ribcage.
A sudden flapping noise caught Eadie’s attention, and he looked up in time to see a large shape with wings and a hog’s head swoop down at him.
He screamed, fell, and landed hard on his back, driving out what little air he had left in his lungs.
Coughing, he scrambled into a sitting position, gaze shifting backward and forward, trying to pinpoint the thing. But it had gone.
After a few terrifying moments when he thought the beast would return to finish him off, Eadie caught his breath and stood, the machete clutched in his sweating hand.
He started to run again and managed a few yards before he heard a gravelly voice, gibbering. He stopped, hand tightening on the machete’s handle. He started toward the sound, halted.
What if it’s that thing. What if it’s trying to trick me?
Eadie shook his head. The voice had sounded too human to be anything but a man. Besides, the words had been in Kiswahili only, and too crazed, too wild, to be that thing. It had to be human.
Parting the long grass with the machete blade, he saw a small, elderly man squatting there, large brown eyes wide with fear. They fixed on Eadie’s. There was something almost accusing in that stare.
The mganga’s leathery, wrinkled face contorted into a grimace.
“Why you do this to me?” Eadie raised his machete. “I kill you, bad magic go away!”
The old man cackled, then screeched in garbled Kiswahili, “No magic. Pig-God, He live. He want you, Eadie. He want only you.”