ShadowCast 030 Disgustipated 02

The Definition of a Line

by Todd Austin Hunt

read by Jason Warden

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She heard Walter’s labored breathing on the stairs, a sound almost muffled by the rumblings of her stomach. The dying sun through the bedroom window cast her shadow over Liam’s face. With a shiver, she brushed a stiff lock of hair from his forehead. Even sick, even dying, he was a beautiful child.
Walter coughed. “Carolina? Is it done yet? Why are you taking so long?”
Carolina hissed. “If you can’t help me with this, if you can’t show your face, SHUT UP!”
She grabbed the pillow and looked down at her little boy. His eyes were shut, but the orbs were bouncing beneath the lids. Her stomach rumbled again as she glanced at his plump thigh.
“Oh, Liam,” she said, clamping the pillow over his face.
As the boy’s struggles slowed, a bright form entered the room from the darkness of the shadow. Carolina and Walter were oblivious to its presence. It stood behind the boy’s head, curved like the lean finale of an eclipse. With scimitar-sharp fingers, it traced the image of a rising balloon above Liam’s chest. Within that same instant, it painted a necklace around Carolina’s neck, its links burdened by the weight of an anchor. Designation done, it vanished into the weak sunlight.
Upon its exit, the shadow itself bulged, washing over Liam and removing the image. The bulge flattened out, and the little boy stopped moving and breathing.
“Bring the knives, Walter,” Carolina said.

* * *

The definition of a true line is an infinite scrape in both directions. Have you tried imagining standing at the end of that line? You will try forever, because neither you nor anyone else has ever been there. Somewhere along that line, fathoms and chasms away from the window of your eyes, spiraled the designator of the Fates, the instant antecedent to Death’s arrival. The present was his perpetual moment, and he was tugged forward by the taking of life. Each murder was a doorway through which his lithe form was permitted to the next; he cascaded through a constant wormhole of bloodshed and the imminent transportation of souls. Death was a mere blind force that needed his scrawled directions in order to take these souls to another level. Without the designator, a murdered soul was an obliterated soul. And so he moved, while Death chased him . . .

. . . in the icy waters of the Arctic, painting the Fates of a baby seal and the orca that has crushed its head between its jaws – next – a Rock Elm felled at the edge a forest by Maurice Polacky for the wood stove – a stray ant drunk from spilled ice cream, squashed by Signora Soledad’s bare foot – Gabriella LeBron pounded and raped against the stone wall of the blood center by her Father, shrieking her Mother’s name until he plunges the razor into her throat – a row of corn plowed down by Cooke’s harvester – a Gornfly sucking the cranial juice completely dry from the Hovering Mercurybat in the shadowed valleys of Gliese 581 C – Private Coulter blown to wet shreds, stepping on a land mine planted by Lt. Peter Yuri – a Labrador puppy dropped from a 18th floor window in Brooklyn by little Marjorie Goldberg, splattering the pavement while Marjorie snapped her bubble gum – a lamb slaughtered by Father Ray, licking his hand as its blood sprayed from its torn throat – next . . .

. . . and the Designator stopped. His forward motion had been halted. The knotted darkness of Death, a shadow continually collapsing on itself, overcame him and drifted through the present world and vanished into a doorway that the designator could not see.
He was trapped.
He floated leagues above the surface of a gray landscape; the vistas were flat and vast and colorless, and certainly not warmed by the apparent pallor of the sky. The only structure to break the horizon was a colossal pillar of glowing rock; the glow had an orange tint to it he found familiar.

Art by SlushPileHero

If there had been life on this planet, the taking of it would also have occurred, and the designator would be able to carve his symbols in the air and thus continue. A gnawing worry devoured his ethereal being. Without his directions for Death, the Takers and the Taken would be snuffed out forever.
A colossal hand from below closed around his form and brought him down.
* * *
He stood on a giant pedestal, surrounded by bars of light the color of the glowing rock. The light restrained his movement. Three gargantuan faces stared into his cage. He was no bigger than the pupils of their eyes. The titans appeared to be humanoid, but their features were thick and fleshy, heavy like the stone on which they stood. Although their skin was as ashen as the air, the eyes and hair shone faintly with the orange color. The Designator had never seen this species before.
The giant in the middle had hair on its face and was evidently male. The females standing on either side of him had swollen bellies. The male smiled at the Designator and prodded into his thoughts.
“Yes, they are pregnant. I am sorry if you were handled roughly. Goasha is sometimes too curious. My name is Keenard.”
Keenard glanced at the female to his right, who blushed. The female to his left furrowed her cyclopean brow in anger, then quickly recovered her sullen expression.
“This will be your home. Forever. I have waited eons to capture you, Designator. The time for murder is over. The universe will now reflect the peace that we enjoy here.”
“How is it that your world is free of murder?” the Designator asked. “For you to live is impossible without the subsequent consumption of life.”
Keenard bared his stalagmite teeth. “Murder is evil!”
“You don’t understand the danger of your actions. Murder is necessary.”
The giant calmed. “Every life is precious.” He gestured to the column of glimmering rock. “Ages ago I isolated one of the Thousand Gods of Life. His power is imprisoned within the pillar, and it is enough to sustain the seven of us, as well as the seeds sleeping in their bellies. This world has long ago been sterilized. Nothing can be killed here.”
The Designator glared at the towering rock in the distance. “You have taken two devastating steps toward the breaking of the Line. If the Line is broken, the continuity of the universe will be compromised. Death will create a hole without me. I am the recycler of souls!”
“You are a fiend; you endorse murder. Thus, you are evil.”
Forgetting the Designator and the unnamed female, Keenard turned to Goasha and grabbed her waist. “I will lay with you tonight.”
The other female groaned, which made the pedestal shudder. “You have lain with Goasha for a hundred nights!”
Keenard didn’t look at her. “Govern your anger, hag.” He walked away with Goasha, leaving the unwanted boiling in fury, glaring at Keenard’s back.
The Designator felt his worry lighten. Waves of confused wrath radiated outward from the scorned giantess which engorged his hope.
He reached out to her thoughts. “He has forgotten you, as he will forget your child.”
She pressed her monstrous face close to the lighted bars of his cage, breathing heavily, then stalked off.

* * *

Four days passed in this same fashion. Before he retired for the night with his favored Goasha, Keenard stood before the Designator and offered a lengthy sermon on the sanctity of life and his mission to prevent the vanquishing of it.
On that fourth night, once he was left alone, the Designator looked at the sky. The clouds had dissolved to reveal a brilliant canopy of stars. While he gazed at one of the brightest beacons, the star vanished. Horrified, he flashed to the bars of his prison. A few moments later, another one disappeared. Only two winked out that night, but he never broke his gaze, memorizing the celestial map.

* * *

At twilight of the fifth day, he interrupted Keenard’s preaching.
“You disgust me. In your ignorance, you are murdering the future. You are constipated with principals that have the weight of air and hold the truth of delusions.”
Keenard’s orange eyes darkened. He swiveled, yanking Goasha with him to their quarters. “I will forgive you tomorrow!”
Again, the unloved female was left with the Designator.
“With the God’s power, you will never have need of nourishment,” he said to her. “You will live forever, raising your child, bereft of his embrace. You will watch him love the other and that baby. He will make a nation of babies with her, and you will look on, alone and forgotten. And you will never die.”
A decision clicked within her enormous head. She turned away from the pedestal, and slowly walked to her bed.

* * *

The Designator felt the murders the moment they occurred. He was pulled by them, and the acts resulted in the complete restoration of his movement, his purpose. He bolted to Keenard’s behemoth stone quarters, passing through its walls. The spurned female held a jagged sliver of rock to her throat. Keenard and Goasha lay together, blood spraying from gouged throats. Goasha’s womb was savaged.
He stretched his fingers and painted thick upright arrows in the air above Goasha and her child. The murderer took her own life, and the life of her baby. Scratching out two more north-pointing arrows, the Designator turned to Keenard, whose life pumped slowly away.
“Of what use is a wizard if he is so willfully blind?”
In thick lines that burned the air, he painted an anchor around Keenard’s ripped throat, and alongside that, a figure eight lying on its side.
Two holes opened up in the cavernous bedroom, one on the floor and another in the ceiling. The black cloud of Death surfaced from the floor, roiling in hunger, passing over the five and taking their souls to the designated levels.
Outside in the darkness, the dazzling pillar of rock coruscated in orange flame which rose to the peak and flashed a thousand times until evanescing into the night sky.
The Designator blazed up through hole in the ceiling, onward, onward, while Death followed a breath behind.

* * *

Rosemary finished cleaning the freshly gathered vegetables from her garden in the sink. Her huge rabbit, Gargantua, hopped around on the clean tile. She laughed, set the vegetable basket down on the table and picked up the rabbit.
Kissing its twitching, inquisitive nose, she squealed, “Is my pretty lady bunny hungry?” She held Gargantua in her lap and plucked a carrot from the basket, holding it inches away from the rabbit’s mouth.
Rosemary frowned, cocking her head, involuntarily pulling the carrot away.
“What was that sound? Weird. I could swear I heard someone screaming.”
Shrugging, she caressed Gargantua while it greedily devoured the carrot.
A hole opened in the table . . .

ShadowCast 029 Disgustipated 01

Reticulating Evangelist

by Keith Dugger

read by Jason Warden

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A hundred voices sprang out from under the cover of wilted green. A thousand screams silenced by squirts and spurts of chemical brain baths spraying and sputtering from an army of dozen-headed snakes. The toothless, brass-headed snakes spread their puppet master’s poisonous venom over the congregation. Heads drooped and shoulders slumped as the arsenic muddled with demon goat balls dripped down their browning leaves. The post-coital juices skewed the people’s view of their shepherd.

“I have seen the destruction!” Clad in dusty black, the shepherd yelled from the rusted hood of an antiquated John Deere (Tractor). “I’ve witnessed the decimation!”

Foaming spit spewed out of the man’s mouth. He white-knuckle clutched a tattered Farmers’ Almanac, brittle corners flittered to the cracked, grey dirt like paper-doll moths drifting to a hypnotizing flame.

“Amen, Pastor,” said a member of his flock from the back row.

He touched a pumice stone finger to his sundried raisin lips. Lips laced with cracks so deep subcutaneous lava erupted molten kisses; sweetly caressing the diarrhea colored fingernails jutting out from his finger bones. “Shhh,” he rasped. “You mustn’t awaken the sleeping hunger that awaits.” He touched himself (there). His whispers barely reached the first row of his congregation, but those in the back rocked rhythmically to the heart beat of their coming harvest.

Pastor Normil (not normal) Fondlemein, a travelling evangelist forced into farm labor by a passage in the good book, spoke to the massive crowd gathered as if they’d been planted just to hear his message (they had).

“Pedantic carrots, properly washed and neatly trimmed, stand phallic-stoned in the darkness of that which you cannot see and cannot whisper in the company of men.” (Anonymous, p. 27, Farmers’ Almanac for the Year 1932). Normil’s heart raced remembering his much younger self reading those fateful words for the first time. Author Anonymous unknowingly guiding him on the road to phallic carrot worship on the man-made banks of the Oregon State Highway 58.

He pulled his eye flaps shut, hugged the almanac close to his chest and shuddered a quick release at the thought. The front row bowed their heads in reverence to the dampness growing at his crotch.

A cold March wind whipped around the rows of carrot parishioners, whipped around Normil’s yellowed hair and whistled through the cavern of emptiness he would later fill with the long, slender flesh of willing (unwilling) carrots.

“You are my flock. You are my people. You have grown long and hard in the moistness of the earth. You have waited for me to choose you. You have waited for me to take you whole. That day has come. Our judgment day.” Normil knelt on Tractor’s hood, her hard, used frame creaked. She felt (hated) his dampness.

Vibrant colored light from the setting sun hid the telling orange tint in the whites of his eyes as he gazed at them. The sea of green carrot tops waved to him in the new spring air. A crust of dried dirt loosened from his hard-soled shoes bounced around the pitted metal that was his (frightened) pulpit.

Tractor, too tired to sit through another Sunday sermon, gurgled her engine to life; sputtering her own indecipherable message to all that would hear. She burped a cloud of constipated disgust at Pastor Normil’s carrot abuse.

Although the flock was mesmerized (dehumanized) by the hide-and-seek experience that waited for them once he plucked them from the warmth of their earthy womb, Tractor had bore witness to the frivolities of the pastor’s perversion through many cold winters behind closed barn doors.

Tractor jerked forward.

Normil fell flat, his good book breaking apart at the binding as the dry wind ripped it from his grasp. The well-used 1932 copy of his religious pornography, pages of scorn stuck together from overuse (abuse), broke into thousands of dragonfly-like pieces and flew their escape into the chemical-laden air.

He stretched a thin arm out to the good book. “My life, my love.” Acid tears etched more deeply the eroded pathways down the leather patches of his cheeks.

Rows of carrots parted as Tractor drove Pastor Normil, still perched despicably on her hood, to the center of the congregation. In her wake, her own crop circles of hope. And change.

She turned her battered steering wheel hard. Lowering her throttle to barely a hum, she traced a tight circle showing Pastor Normil to the murmuring crowd. A broken, scared (free) crowd.

Tractor puffed her smoke of disgust as if to calm the now shepherd-less flock of carrots. They quieted in the dusk at her soothing sound.

A fully grown carrot (Alpha) pulled his full length out of his dirt birthing canal and stood erect at Tractor’s presentation of Pastor Normil.

“You have offered him to me?” Alpha pointed a nearly dead leaf to the now flaccid preacher.

As if to bow, Tractor engaged reverse, revved her old engine and spilled Normil on the ground at Alpha’s feet.

Normil (not Pastor, not normal) scrambled to right himself (he didn’t). Alpha nodded to one side then the other and a squad of little (baby) carrots forced Normil to sit, hands at his back. They held him looking up at their sky on what might be his final judgment (crucifixion) day.

Twice as tall as the old man, Alpha leaned over Normil. “Today you get to see life as a carrot sees life.” And he turned away from the stunned preacher.

Alpha’s shadow fell over Normil. The little carrots hid their baby eyes, but kept a tight grip on the fallen farmer. Repulsed at being Alpha’s virginal lesson, Normil kicked and screamed and pulled against the well trained carrot squadron. “You can’t!” he yelled as a great carrot cavern opened and Alpha slowly eased Normil inside.

Normil wept.

He twisted and writhed as the ooze coated him in the cool darkness. Tractor revved her tired engine and the crowd of carrots cheered and some leapt out of their holes, turning back flips of exaltation.

When Alpha had rendered his punishment (pleasure), he spat Normil out like a newborn pervert still slick with afterbirth and motioned for the little carrots to let him go. Normil dripped, cold and beaten, on the ground around him.

“Let this day be remembered as our day of freedom, Normil (not normal) Fondlemein. You are our farmer no more!” Alpha retreated as the crowd of carrots followed him out of the pasture. Whispers of dust devils in the empty field taunted Normil with his fall from grace. Tractor drove her way back to the barn.

Normil held himself fetal-like until Alpha and his new flock were out of sight. He squirmed in the frothy mud, a soulless sperm blindly writhing in second place toward a hidden egg. Working himself to his distended belly, Normil crouched, wiped the Alpha-glaze off his face and retrieved a gently worn copy of a 1933 Farmers’ Almanac from his back pocket. Flipping to a random page, he smiled at the prospects of a new year.

“Corn will be your savior in a great time of need.” (Anonymous, p. 71, Farmers’ Almanac for the Year 1933).

“It’s time to plant for next harvest.” Normil stumbled, still finding his new legs, toward the farmhouse and touched himself.
© Keith Dugger 2010

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Afraid of Sunlight

byNeil Colquhoun

read by Jason Warden

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Inside his room the stranger sat at the window. He looked up at the moon and
smiled. It was time.

When he woke up early that Saturday, Thomas Cuthbertson felt
something was wrong. In the farthest corners of his mind lay the remnants of his dreams but all he managed to remember were a few disjointed fragments.
He felt spooked. Something was not quite right. It was as if the edges
of his mind were blurred and when he tried to focus, confusion and uncertainty
only served to make it worse. Memories flitted around, fading then coming back brighter. He felt giddy and opened his eyes wide, attempting to let the light in, hoping to illuminate the parts hidden in shadow.
The connections were made deep within his mind. Something that part of him seemed unwilling to recall.
A shrill tone from the bedside telephone tore him from his thoughts. He glanced at the clock. Five minutes past six. In his experience, good news was never delivered so early in the morning. Steeling himself, he picked up the telephone. “Yes?”
The voice on the other end of the line immediately apologised for waking him
so early in the day. What followed piqued his curiosity and sent a chill up his spine at
the same time. Cuthbertson frowned. “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” he replied.“Keep him under observation and for Christ’s sake, don’t let anybody else near him.”

“I’m getting too old for this,” Cuthbertson thought as he quickly dressed. He had been informed of the stranger’s arrival but had steered clear the first couple weeks. He had been convinced the facility would discover the man’s identity and inform the relatives, But a month had passed and the man still remained under their care.
During the monthly review Cuthbertson looked over the file on the stranger
and decided to see what all the fuss was about. For everybody who entered the room, and tried to elicit a response from the stranger, the situation was both frustrating and confusing. The man refused to talk, yet obediently followed their orders. Every day he sat on the same chair, listening, in the same position, until he was led back to his room. Nothing else had happened… until now.
When he observed one of the sessions where the stranger gave the same impassioned mute performance, Cuthbertson felt the same exasperation and frustration. Then, just as the session was drawing to a close, the stranger stared at the one way mirror and gave the tiniest hint of a smile. Cuthbertson felt a shiver run down his spine.

‘Now, that was interesting,’ He thought. What did the smile – ‘more like a smirk, though ‘ mean? Had the stranger intentionally let his mask slip slightly? And why today?

Cuthbertson held his pass up for the guard to confirm his identity and was immediately waved through. He drove to the car parking area and sprinted the short distance to the building entrance. The man who had telephoned him earlier, Night supervisor Eddie Butler sheltered from the rain along with a security guard.
“What’s the situation?” he asked, nodding to them both. Butler ushered him inside and closed the door, leaving the guard outside. With a hint of excitement to his voice Butler said, “He’s still pacing the room, muttering under his breath. We caught it all on tape.”

“Secure, I hope?”

“Yes. Thankfully.”

“You sure?”

“Absolutely.”

“He’d better be, for all our sakes.”

They passed through the reception. Cuthbertson didn’t break his stride, holding
up his laminated pass, past caring about protocol. The intense foreboding from his dreams returned and this time refused to be brushed aside.
Butler waited until they were heading down the corridor before speaking. “He
caught us by surprise. It came out of the blue. We were not expecting anything from
him. Everything seemed the same when we went to collect him from his room then it
all kicked off.”
Cuthbertson raised his eyebrow and asked, “Kicked off? How?”

“He suddenly lunged for one of the orderlies and he…”

“What changed this morning? What was different?”

“Nothing. It was just like every other day.”

They reached a door which clicked and swung open on their approach. When they were over the threshold the door closed.
The room held a surveillance station complete with a bank of monitors. Inset
on the opposite wall were three doors. Two security guards flanked the middle door.
Each held a high powered rifle across their chest.

“As you can see, he’s in room two,” Butler said.
Cuthbertson nodded in agreement but mentally questioned as to whether the secure room was the correct place to house the prisoner; after all, they had had plenty of time to ensure he was placed within a more suitable confine. But their inability to properly access and analyse might prove to be their undoing. A warning from a long buried past poked suddenly through the barrier in his mind – ‘in fact,’ he realized, it
could prove to be the undoing of all of mankind.’

The middle monitor showed the interior of the room which was bathed in
light. The man inside, pacing up and down. Suddenly he stopped and
stared directly at the camera. He smiled. It was the smile of a man in the know.

Cuthbertson shuddered. In a flash it all came back to him. The dreams, the memories, the sleepless nights. Fleeting glimpses of the face which had and continued to haunt him. He had made a mistake. Instead of doing what was advised, he had taken pity and made the punishment less severe. Too humane and not inhuman enough, he thought. But now the cast-out had been reborn and was back looking for revenge.

“Puts you at unease. “ Butler’s voice broke into his thoughts. “There’s something about him, I tell you.”
Cuthbertson turned away from the monitor. “Where is the orderly?” he asked.

“In the infirmary. He’s in a bad way. Can you believe it?”

“What?”

“Well, when they went in to his room in the morning to bring him for
breakfast he just freaked.” Butler paused but Cuthbertson remained quiet, looking distractedly around the room. “He jumped on the orderly, wrestled him to the ground then – bit him.”

Cuthbertson paled “He bit someone? One of the orderlies?”

“ And not just a little scratch but a full-blown bite of the neck. He tore a huge lump out of the neck. And get this; he seemed to enjoy what he did.”

Closing his eyes, Cuthbertson asked. “Then what?”

“Well, the other orderly shoved the man off and laid into him in the corner,
screaming for help for his buddy. It was like a madhouse.”

Cuthbertson was convinced now, had no doubts as to the identity of the man in the room and to what he was. The biggest danger was nobody else knew and the situation was breaking down.

Butler continued. “After the beating he became very subdued and
compliant. We hauled his ass up here and placed him in secure lock-up.”

“The orderly. Where did you say he was again?”

“The infirmary. He’s being monitored closely, hooked up to IV drip. We
patched him up and gave him blood-”

“What!” Cuthbertson s eyes flew open and stared incredulously at Butler.

Butler hesitated, a confused look on his face. “He bled out a lot.
We don’t really know if he’ll make it. The doctor patched up his neck and gave him a
lot of units of blood.”

‘Wrong move’, Cuthbertson thought.’ Now the problem just got a hell of a lot
worse.’
“Is somebody with the orderly? What’s his name?” He lifted up the phone from
the monitoring station. With a barely audible sigh Butler said, “His name is
Mike Spencer. He’s being closely monitored. The doctors are making sure he’s
stabilised before sending him out.”

“No! We must keep him here. We’ll be able to – he – will be safer here. Don’t under any circumstances let him leave the facility.”

Butler looked closer at Cuthbertson, sizing him up, wondering at the odd
remarks and the hint of hysteria to his voice. “It is standard procedure to treat them in house before moving them to the hospital.” He tried again, more insistent. “It’s a serious injury. Life threatening I was told.”

“He – stays – here.” Cuthbertson said quietly but firmly. Butler was about to respond when an ear splitting noise filled the air.

The alarms began their two-tone wailing. Butler and Cuthbertson looked at
each other quickly before viewing the monitor. Their prisoner had ceased pacing the room and was now sitting on his bed. Calm and seemingly oblivious to the noise emanating from the speakers, he sat, hands clasped together. As the two men watched him, he nodded and looked directly into the camera again.

Cuthbertson kept his gaze fixed on the monitor, “Butler, find out if
Spencer is okay. Quick.”

One of the two security guards lifted his eyebrows quizzically and asked,
“Would you like one of us to see what is going on?”

“No. Stay where you are. There’s plenty others who can check it out,”
Cuthbertson replied.

Butler was about to protest when the door burst open. A man with a white coat crashed through the doorway slamming the door shut behind him.
Panting heavily, his face red from exertion he managed to speak. “The alarms…
people running…I had to get away…we have to get out…”

The two security guards moved a few paces into the centre of the room. The
safety catches on their weapons now in the off position. They both readied themselves
for action.
Butler went to the man who had entered the room. The
name tag on the coat said Gabriel. “Say again. What’s going on?” he asked him.

“I heard the alarm. At first I wondered if it was a test or a mistake but then I
saw people running.” Gabriel looked Butler in the eye, shook his head then continued,
“I had to leave them or it could have been me.”

“What do you mean, it could have been you?” Butler asked.

“I saw what happened. I didn’t want it to happen to me.”

Butler grabbed his shoulders and shook him. “Tell me. You didn’t want what
to happen to you?”

One of the security guards spoke. “I’ll go and see what is happening, maybe
try and silence the alarms.”

Cuthbertson turned and faced Butler and Gabriel. “It won’t make any difference. The whole place is in lock down. You won’t get very far. More to the point, you won’t get out the building.”

“Why, what do you know?” Butler asked. “What’s wrong?”

But it was Gabriel who responded said, “He’s right. Spencer is running
around like a madman and-”

“Spencer?” asked Butler. “But he’s…”

“Yes,” Gabriel interrupted. “He just jumped up from the bed, ripped the IV out
his arm and attacked the nurse who was tending to him. He bit into her neck. I
saw him do the same to three other people in the room before he headed off down the
corridor.”

Butler swivelled round to face Cuthbertson. “What is it? A virus? What? You
know, don’t you?”

Before Cuthbertson could answer, the door to the secure room rattled in its
frame.
Gabriel glanced towards the door.
Butler looked at the monitor.
One of the security guards swivelled round to face the door. The other guard
raised his weapon and moved towards the door.

Another crash and the door rattled again in its frame.
On the monitor Butler could see the man inside the room throwing his weight
at the door. He drew back, then launched himself at it again.
The door creaked and groaned and shifted on its hinges.

One of the security guards shouted, “Sir?”

“Take aim. Don’t let him escape,” replied Cuthbertson anxiously.

Gabriel went for the exit door. Butler put up an arm to stop him, “Stay here. They’ll take him down if need be.”

“I want to check the door is locked,” said Gabriel.

Butler frowned, “Why?”

“If you think this is bad, then you don’t want to go out there.”

Grabbing hold of Gabriel’s shoulder, Butler whirled him round and screamed
at him. “What the hell is going on?”

CRASH. The door to the room gave way and landed on the floor.
The man rolled off the door and sprang quickly to his feet with considerably more
alertness than he had displayed before. In a split second he’d jumped onto the chest of one of the guards, placed his hands on either side of his head, and quickly snapped the guard’s neck. Springing sideways he hit the other security guard on the side of his body.
Gasping loudly, the guard was floored, cracked ribs pressing on his lung.
The man sank his teeth into the helpless guard’s neck as he lay struggling to breathe.
With a roar he tore a huge chunk of flesh from the guard’s neck, blood dripping from
the corners of his mouth, long teeth glinting in the harsh light.

Butler turned and went for the door which Gabriel had come through.
Cuthbertson backed away from the man but knew it was futile. He was
doomed. They all were. He caught the man’s gaze and saw his smile, the same smile
he had seen earlier. This time the significance was not lost on him. It was full of
meaning and the weight of it meant oblivion.
Throwing open the door, Gabriel ran out into the corridor followed by Butler.

The noise level jumped up another notch, the two-tone alarm seeming to wail even
louder. Both men only managed a few paces before stopping, the scene before them
catching them by surprise. A group of men were making their way towards them,
Spencer at the helm, blood spattered across his mouth, his clothes torn. “Told you it
was mayhem,” Gabriel said.
Momentarily stunned, Butler watched as the group slowly advanced. His mind
raced with questions. He looked left and right, hoping for an exit, some way of escape
but they were hemmed in. Trapped with nowhere to run to except back into the room
they had just exited.
Spencer suddenly ran at them, the rest of the group a split second behind.
Shouts and cries filled the air, mixing with the incessant ringing of the alarm.
Butler and Gabriel ran back into the room, slamming the door closed and
turning the lock. Butler stood, his back pressed to the door, wondering how long the
door would hold.
The man who had been held captive in the room stood, mouth open exposing
his teeth. Blood dripped down his face and left a trail on the white shirt he was
wearing. Then he spoke. “It’s all over now. For you. For them. For everybody.”
As if to bolster the statement, a hammering began on the door. Gabriel and
Butler pushed with their backs making every effort to prevent the mob from entering
the room.
Cuthbertson sat slumped in a chair in front of the monitors. He knew it was
over. There was nothing they could do. It had been fine when things were
contained, when it could be kept secure. But he knew as well as the next man about
nothing lasting forever, and forever was never to be.
The man was a virus, only it was not one which a syringe containing a mixture could rectify. Indeed, the clock could not be turned back: once this particular virus got into the mainstream all hope was gone.

Gabriel and Butler strained but the door began to open. Their feet slid slowly
across the floor until the gap widened enough for an arm to reach through. It grabbed
Butler and, with superhuman strength, threw him to the floor. The door flew open, Gabriel ended up on his rear. The rush of men into the room trampled Butler and Gabriel then stopped when they saw the man.
They stared, awed. Their saviour was free and soon he would claim his rightful place among them.
The man reached for Cuthbertson and pulled him closer. Bringing his mouth
to his ear he whispered “You gave me life, gave me hope. But you will not stop me again.” Then, baring his teeth, the Devil exposed Cuthbertson’s neck.

© Neil Colquhoun 2008-2010

Shadowcast 028 Krav’s Penance

Krav’s Penance

by Fred S. Bauers Jr.

read by Fred Bauers

Hosted by Emma Newman

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Pain.

Pain had become the entirety of his world. Most of his flesh had been burned leaving only rigid patches of scars where soft skin had been. His once full head of long golden hair hung limply in patches upon his scarred scalp. Broken teeth ground together at the feel of a razor’s sharp steel blade cutting into the flesh of his nose, severing it from his face. Again and again it cut, slicing away one eyelid and then the other. Unable to close his eyes he could not look away as the scalpel descended to his mouth cutting away both of his lips completing the grisly death mask his face had become.

The pieces they cut from him were casually tossed into a brazier filling the chamber with the scent of burned flesh. There was a brief moment of lucidity as he wondered at his ability to smell without his nose. That moment did not last long, for his tormentor took a torch and seared the fresh wounds on his face to cauterize them, preventing his power from regenerating the lost tissue. In the past this part would have brought ear piercing screams from him but no longer. Now, he had become used to the pain. So much so that it had become a part of him.

Besides, the physical pain was nothing when compared to the burning hunger inside of him. It was a liquid fire that burned its way through his body causing him to shudder and writhe convulsively. He had gone longer without feeding than normal. Nergal did not like it if Krav passed out during the ‘sessions’, as he called them, so made sure Krav had the blood he needed to stay conscious. But, this time a meal had not been provided.

“Do not lose yourself to the hunger, Krav,” echoed a deep voice in the large stone chamber. “I will not have you unaware during the next few moments.”

“So you grace me with your presence?” Krav thought, sending the words telepathically, unable to speak due to his tongue having been removed. His ice blue eyes fixed on the shadow that was The First of Them All, The King of all Vampires, The Lord of the Underworld, and the most hated of all creatures, Nergal. ”To what do I owe this dubious honor,” his thoughts hissed.

“I have come to test a theory,” said the living shadow, as he moved closer the very light from the room seeming to be sucked into his inky blackness. Krav knew there was a body of flesh underneath that carefully contrived visage for he had been the only one in nearly three thousand years to see Nergal with out his shadowy disguise. There was no sign of that flesh beneath the swirling black that surrounded his foe now. Only eyes of molten red stared at Krav with deep malevolent hatred. “I have come to see the Great Krav Martonavic break.”

Krav felt anger build in his chest and was about to send his response screaming into the mind of this most hated of beings, but was made to pause by a soft familiar voice in his mind. “Beware, Krav, Nergal is doing more than just taunting you.”

“Hush, Ezekiel,” he thought. “He can do no more to me then he already has.”

“Do not be so sure my friend,” insisted the voice. “Nothing he does is without purpose.”

“Be quiet!” shouted the shade before him and Krav howled as an icy spike of mental force drove into his brain, pushing the consciousness of Ezekiel out. “I will not allow your maker to aid you in this Krav. This you will endure on your own.”

Krav could feel Ezekiel resist but it was not long before Nergal pushed him back. However, before being completely shut off, Ezekiel was able to send one more faint thought to him. “Remember who you are, Krav,” his voice whispered. “Remember.” Then he was gone.

Krav felt a pain at the loss of that voice. Ezekiel had been a constant presence in his head since the day he had become what he was. In many ways Ezekiel had been more of a father to him than the man that had called him son and made him heir to a kingdom. Ezekiel had sacrificed the entirety of his essence into the creation of Krav in order to provide him with the power necessary for the task that lay ahead. Since that day he had existed only as a separate consciousness inside Krav’s mind. A voice that offered support, wise counsel, and much needed training.

At Nergal’s signal the two red robed inquisitors slowly stepped back bending nearly double in prostration to their Lord and master leaving the room. Once they had departed Nergal flowed forward until he stood mere inches before Krav. “Yes, remember who you are,” said Nergal, his voice dripping with scorn. “Remember that you are my toy, remember that you are nothing before me.”

With a growl Krav pulled against the silver manacles that bound him, ignoring the razor sharp spikes of agony lancing down his arms, pulling himself erect so he could look down upon his hated foe. Eyes of icy blue fire stared into Nergal’s molten pits. He held his head high glaring down upon the shorter creature. Ezekiel had been right, he needed to remember who he was. He would have smiled if he had been able.

“I was the one that made you beg,” he thought clearly. “I was the one that brought you to your knees.” Satisfaction surged through him at the ripple in Nergal’s inky black form. Krav remembered shoving his black blade through Nergal. The memory of that anguished wail had been one of his few pleasures during the long years of captivity. Seizing it, he pushed that memory into Nergal’s mind, wielding it like a weapon.

He remembered entering the citadel after feeding off the blood of a mage, his mind still spinning with the swirl of energy that threatened to consume him from that potent blood. The power had been beyond anything he had ever imagined. He had been able to sense the very air around him, the flows of living energy it contained, and he had summoned it all. Drawing his black blade he stalked through the great golden doors into the throne room.

The moment he had seen the shadowy figure of Nergal, he had used the sword as a focus and sent a cylinder of white hot fire wreathed in lightning shooting at his enemy. Nergal had tried to flow around it but had been unable to avoid the blow. The force of the blast had sent Nergal flying across the room to slam with horrific force against the far wall. Krav remembered smiling when Nergal’s black form had dissipated, only to reform when the creature had realized that walls of solid air sealed the room preventing escape.

Nergal had howled in rage and two blades of shadow formed in his hands as he leaped forward, attacking Krav with all of his preternatural strength and speed. Blue sparks flashed in the darkness as blade of liquid night was met by obsidian steel. How long had they fought? Krav could not remember. Time had seemed to stand still as the two titans waged war upon each other. Blade against blade and mind against mind.

Krav had long since understood that the power of a vampire was determined more by his strength of will than his age and none had a greater will then Krav. The only being that could match him was Nergal himself. They had flowed through the throne room with the grace of dancers evenly matched foes each waiting for the other to make a mistake. Eventually, Nergal did.

With a triumphant cry Krav had driven the point of his black blade into his foe. With a grunt he twisted the blade viciously. The muscles of Krav’s face twitched as he tried to smile remembering Nergal’s howl of agony as the shadows that surrounded him had shattered revealing his true form.

Krav had been surprised at how small Nergal was. The creature couldn’t have been more than five and half feet tall and was slender of build. Dark eyes stared out of a brown skinned face twisted with rage and pain. Nergal’s hands shook as they gripped the dark blade only to pull back with a gasp as Krav twisted the blade again and sneered at the smoking gashes in Nergal’s palms.

“The blade is forged from sky metal,” he had said. “Its touch burns those of us that live beyond death.” He had shoved the blade deeper and had savored the scream that it tore from this creature’s mouth. “Such burns that cannot be healed by our power.”

Pain!!! A sudden surge of white hot fire coursed through Krav’s body jolting him back to the present.

His back arched, every muscle convulsing as he howled in agony. He could feel Nergal’s power triggering every nerve in his body. After several minutes, minutes that had seemed like days, he hung limp in the silver chains gasping his body still twitching from the after affects of the savage pain that had ripped through him. Nergal did not need his inquisitors to inflict pain upon his enemies. He was the master and none could administer it as effectively as he could himself.

“Did I touch a sore spot, Nergal,” Krav thought, gathering himself and forcing his gaze back to the shade. “Do you not like to remember that day?”

Krav could not define it but there was a difference in the blackness of Nergal’s shadowy form. A ripple along the surface which told him that he’d shaken Nergal with those memories, Krav rejoiced. It was a small victory but any victory over a creature such as this was to be savored. Nergal had never been defeated, had not even suffered injury until that day. Krav was the only creature in the entire world that had been able to hurt the first of all vampires. It was for this sin that he suffered, and it had been worth it.

“Worth it?” asked Nergal, sensing Krav’s thoughts. “Worth centuries of anguish? Worth the destruction of your people? Your kingdom destroyed?”

“Some yet survive,” Krav thought.

“But will your blood survive much longer?” whispered Nergal. His quite voice sending an icy chill down Krav’s spine. “How will the Great Krav survive knowing that his line has ended?”

“I was the only son of my father, the last of my line,” Krav thought in a hiss. “My line ends with me.”

“You know better than that, dear enemy,” whispered Nergal as his fingers caressed Krav’s scarred cheek. “You had uncles, did you not?”

Krav felt his stomach clench. He glared at Nergal, refusing to respond. His people had been the whole reason he had warred upon this creature. To prevent the great cleansing that Nergal had planned was the sole purpose of Krav’s campaign. All to save the people that mattered to him, the people of his homeland and his family. He could not, would not, believe Nergal had found them all.

He cried out as image after bloody image was seared into his brain. Men watching as their wives were ravaged, their children skinned alive and left to die in slow agony before they themselves died from months of torture. Krav remembered many of them and could see the family resemblance in the rest. Each death a dagger of ice thrust into his chest. He sobbed with a type of pain that he had no strength against.

“I will kill you,” thought Krav as he glared through red tears at Nergal. “I will see you dead.”

Deep laughter filled Krav’s ears. “I’ll admit you came closer than any before you, Krav,” whispered that sinister voice. “But, you know as well as I do that you will never get another chance. You are mine to do with as I please.”

Krav roared, sending a spike of burning hatred into Nergal’s mind. He snarled as his thoughts bore down upon his ancient foe seeking to overwhelm him. He pushed all of his hate, anger, and pain into the other’s mind. Their wills battled for long moments before Krav began to feel his attack pushed back. Slowly, Nergal pushed Krav out of his mind and slammed shut the barriers between them.

“This is why I never tire of you, my dearest enemy,” Nergal said with a bitter laugh. “You never cease to entertain me, but then all things must come to an end.”

Nergal raised a hand and Krav heard the heavy iron doors of the chamber open. At first it was utterly silent but then he heard it. The sweet sound of a human heart beat. That sound and the metallic smell of blood assaulted his senses. He shuddered as the hunger, momentarily forgotten, roared back to life a hundredfold. His mouth opened as the scent grew stronger, it’s source drawing nearer, his desire to feed overwhelming him.

“The hunger burns inside of you, Krav,” said Nergal. “I bring you blood to feed upon, but can you bring yourself to do so? Can you resist its sweet temptation?”

A woman was pushed roughly to her knees before him. Though she was naked, she showed no shame, only swiped the tears from her face and looked up at him. He stared into her eyes and recoiled. She was tall with pale skin and slender build. Black hair damp from sweat and blood hung limp to the middle of her back, despite the cut in her scalp and the blood she was beautiful but he could only see her eyes. Those eyes that were the same color as his, the eyes that showed, beyond all doubt, that she was of his line. This woman was a Martonavic.

“Yes, you see my dear enemy,” said Nergal, his voice soft with menace. “She is the last of your line. The last one to carry the blood of your family. With her death your line will come to an end and it will be by your own hand.”

Krav shook his head and strained against the silver chains that bound him. He tried to push back the hunger, drive it away. The woman stared at him, head held high. She would not give in to her fear, would not give her captor the satisfaction of her screams. Krav could see her mouth twitch as she tried to speak. He felt a momentary flash of pride because her eyes did not hold the fear one would expect. No, her eyes held hate for Nergal, they held pride and fury. The full lips of her mouth twisted and Krav realized that Nergal was keeping her from speaking. He too knew her words would not be the begging and pleading of lesser people.

“I will not,” thought Krav as he pushed back the hunger. “I will not give in to this.”

“You will my dear enemy,” said Nergal. “Even I cannot prevail against the hunger. Sooner or later you will feed. No matter your desire to spare this woman you will feed and thus you will destroy your own line.”

Nergal’s mocking laughter echoed around the room as he withdrew, sealing the great iron doors on Krav and his kin. Krav heard a soft click and collapsed to the ground. The silver manacles had been opened releasing his charred wrists from their painful embrace. Forcing himself up into a sitting position, ignoring the pain of his numerous broken bones, he looked at this woman. He could see the beat of her pulse and the heat of her blood as it coursed through her arteries and veins. He growled tearing his eyes away from her.

The scent of blood and the sound of it roaring through her veins filled his mind. He felt his fangs extend in response to his ravenous hunger and shook his head, enraged. Nergal had always ordered Kravs fangs removed. It was one of the many degradations that he seemed to relish inflicting upon him. But not this time. Now he understood why.

He screamed again and again as the hunger tore at his mind and body. It burned within leaving him hollow inside. It consumed his thoughts, his pride, his anger until the only thing in his world was the steady beat of that heart, the scent of that sweet blood. His body trembled and then a curtain of red descended upon him.

Krav’s blue eyes stared sightlessly out across the red lake and into the darkness. His thickly muscled arms wrapped tightly around his legs slowly rocking back and forth. Tears of blood left red streaks down each of his unblemished cheeks. He could feel his mentor’s hand gently rest on his shoulder as Ezekiel sat down beside him but he made no move to acknowledge him. Instead, his mind went through each and every image from the woman’s memory that had accompanied the blood. He was numb, his line, his family was dead. No one left to take up the mantle, no one to wear the crown of his broken kingdom. Her memories were all he had left and he went through them again and again, losing himself in them.

He lost track of time as he sat in that vast mental cavern with its lake of blood. How much time had passed? Hours? Days? Years? He did not know. Krav was only vaguely aware of Ezekiel’s comforting presence and of the burning pain of his slowly healing wounds. None of that mattered, nothing mattered anymore, nothing except those memories.

His eyes widened in shock. Had he seen that? Did he dare hope? His chest tightened as he slowly went back through each memory in detail. He gasped as he saw the memory that she had struggled to hide. The memory that she had buried deep so Nergal would not find it and he smiled.

“There is a child,” he said softly, turning to meet Ezekiel’s dark brown eyes.

He felt warmth spread through his body as his mentor returned the smile. “What now?” Ezekiel asked.

Krav turned his head to stare into the darkness, his smile growing wider. “Death and destruction,” he said. “Death and destruction.”

Ezekiel laughed and Krav joined him. Their laughter echoed in the dark cavern and he could almost sense the chill running down Nergal’s spine.

~ The End ~

ShadowCast 027 In The Bag

In The Bag

by Emma Newman

read by Emma Newman

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She sipped at the wine, tasting its quality, savouring the cool touch of the crystal on her lips. The fire roared to her left, in a stone fireplace that was large enough for her to stand up in, and to her right the rain lashed at the huge windows. She smiled at her host, taking in his dark eyes and wide cheekbones. There was something of the eastern European about his features and she liked the way he smiled back.

Artwork by Candra Hope. Inspired by the story "In the Bag"

“I’m going to miss coming here every day,” she said, picking up her spoon again. “I can’t believe it’s over.”

“I’ll miss having you here,” he replied, and she believed him.

She tilted her head and curled her lip in the way that she knew men found irresistible. “Really? Most people are relieved to see the film crew disappear, it’s so disruptive.”

He shrugged. “It was nice to have the old house filled with people for a change.” he picked up his glass, regarded her over its rim. “And it gave me the chance to meet you.”

She looked back down at the chocolate dessert, enjoying the warm rush his obvious infatuation pumped into her chest. She’d indulge just this one evening, and then tomorrow it would be back to London and this place would fade in her memory just like all the other film sets she’d acted in. The latest crush on the leading man would fade with it, along with the memory of these weeks of flirtation with the venue owner. All part of the job. She knew to expect the low days at the end of the project, knew it was just the flavour of exhaustion and that she’d pick up again. But tonight she was still glowing with the thrill of the final cut.

“It’s entirely mutual,” she purred back. “You’re so lucky to get to stay here! Has the house been in your family for a long time?”

He nodded. “Several generations.”

She waited for more, usually these rich men were more than happy to pour information on their fantastic estates over her, given the first opportunity, but when nothing more came, she said; “Funny to think that after all these weeks of seeing each other every day, this is the first time we’ve been alone together.”

“Yes,” he smiled, never taking his eyes off her. “I’m glad you stayed behind. I wanted to talk to you about something.”

She swallowed the last of the pudding and dabbed at the corners of her mouth. What would it be this time, a gift to remember him by? A marriage proposal? A desperate plea to accompany him on his yacht for an upcoming trip to the Mediterranean?

“It’s something very important,” he continued. “And something I would never say to anyone without a great deal of consideration.”

Ah, a marriage proposal, she thought. That would be number… six?

“Oh?” she asked innocently, keeping her green eyes large and round in the way that men like him found attractive.

“But I know this is the right thing to do, that you’re the right one,” he continued, still holding her with the intensity of his gaze. He stood, dropped his napkin onto his chair and walked the length of the table to her. He held out his hand and she slipped hers into his, blushing at the discrepancy between his earnest ardour and her interior world.

“Michael, I-”

“Rosalind,” he said softly, his deep voice making its syllables resonate in her chest, as he pulled her gently to her feet. “I want you to stay here, with me. All of this can be yours too.” He stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers, looking down into her eyes as he pulled her closer. “You are so beautiful. You should always stay this way. Youth should never leave you, and if you stay here with me, it never will.”

It was the strangest marriage proposal she’d received yet. Something about the intensity of his offer made a giggle slip from her tight throat. Maybe she was in trouble here? Maybe he was a madman, and, oh God, the rest of the crew were twenty miles away by now at least.

“Are you trying to do some kind of ‘Twilight’ marriage proposal?” she said clumsily, taking a step back.

He frowned. “It’s dark. And I’m not talking about marriage, but if you married me, it would be even more perfect.”

“Um, what exactly are you talking about?” She tried to slip her hand out of his but his grasp tightened.

“I’m talking about you and me living here, forever. Never growing old Rosalind, never being lonely…”

She pulled her hand away and took another couple of steps back. “You’re getting a bit intense,” she said nervously, watching the frown form. “I… I don’t quite know what to make of this…”

His frown melted into a smile. “I know it must seem like a strange offer,” she followed his eyes as they glanced briefly at a large sack in the corner of the room, tucked behind the chaise lounge. She hadn’t noticed it before, and the sight of it washed out the last of that excited glow she’d had only moments before. “But I assure you, it’s not a trick, and I’m not mad. And I’m not going to hurt you, far from it. I want to take care of you. Treat you like a princess. Give you everything you deserve, and more.” He closed the distance between them and swept up her hand to touch it with his lips. “You were made to be taken care of; the world is too harsh for someone as lovely as you.”

This was taking on the feel of a bad film, one she hadn’t signed up to star in. Time to get her bag and go, before he got any more insistant, she decided, beginning with a trip to the bathroom to break the tension.

“Could I-” her question was interrupted by a loud pounding coming from the hallway. The doorbell was rung, once, twice, then the pounding continued. Oh thank God, she thought, one of the crew has forgotten something.

“Damn,” Michael muttered and stormed out into the hallway. She knew he’d given the staff the night off, presumably to ensure they wouldn’t interrupt the proposal. She followed him, eager to catch the eye of who ever it was.

The door was unlocked and a man staggered into the hallway, carried forwards by the momentum of his fist in mid pound. She recognised him as one of the sparks in the lighting crew, but he had looked very different when she’d waved them off earlier that evening. He was drenched, thick mud caked around his boots and a cut above his left eye sent blood diluted by the rain water streaming down his face. He was so white, it frightened her to look at him.

“What happened?” she gasped, as Michael pushed the door shut against the driving gale.

“I need to use your phone,” he panted. “Christ, something… Christ!”

Michael propelled him into the dining room to stand in front of the fire, grabbing a dry coat from the coat stand as he passed to drape around the man’s shoulders.

“It’s…er… Bob, isn’t it?” Rosalind asked.

He shook his head. “Rob, I’m Rob, I’m one of the trainee sparks, Miss Wilder.”

“What happened? Where are the others?” She grabbed her napkin and gave it to him to staunch the bleeding, but he just held it in his hand, shaking.

“There was an accident. The bridge… there was a flood and the bridge… and the rig crashed, the coach went into it and … oh Christ.”

Rosalind looked at Michael. “We need to call the police! Our mobiles don’t have any signal out here.”

Michael nodded and hurried back out into the hallway as Rosalind took the napkin and with a shaking hand dabbed ineffectually at the wound.

“That’s not… not all of it,” Rob stammered, teeth chattering. “The people… oh Christ they got up again.”

Rosalind frowned. “That’s good, that means-”

“No,” Rob interjected. “You don’t understand. The dead ones got back up again!”

“Is this some sort of sick joke?” she asked, and he gave her a look that made her shiver too.

“The lines are down,” Michael announced grimly as he came back in.

“Are you joking?” Rob winced and snatched the napkin from Rosalind’s hand.

“It’s not unusual when it’s stormy,” Michael replied tersely. “We are in the middle of nowhere as your producer was so fond of saying.”

“Should we go and try to help?” Rosalind asked.

“No!” Rob exclaimed. “I told you, the dead got back up again, like some bloody zombie movie.”

“You must have made a mistake,” she replied. “You’re in shock.” When he shook his head, she said “Look, if this is some sort of “end of shoot” joke it’s not funny. Right Michael?”

She turned to see his face, but saw that he was hurrying to the window to look out at the storm. His glance toward that sack didn’t escape her notice. He pulled back the curtain and pressed his nose to the glass, cupping his hands around his eyes to block out the glare from the room behind him. “It’s filthy weather out there, no wonder the phone lines are down.”

“This isn’t a trick,” Rob said in a shaking voice. “I saw them-”

A loud thunk against the window cut him short, they both turned to see a man the colour of china clay pressed against the window, his head lolling at a nauseating angle. He banged on the window, then drew back before hurling himself through the glass and into the room as Rosalind screamed. The wind blasted into the room with him as he grabbed hold of Michael and knocked him to the floor, clawing at his face and neck.

As he held the man’s hands from his throat, Michael yelled “The sack! Open the sack!” but Rosalind couldn’t move, it was like her brain had disconnected from her body and all she could do was watch through the two small windows of her eyes.

Rob on the other hand sprang into action like a movie hero, grabbing the large candelabra from the middle of the table as he scrabbled across it. He walloped the attacker across the head, and as his head was knocked back, Rosalind realised that the slavering, grey skinned attacker was the Director of Photography.

Rob pulled him off Michael, who struggled to his feet and then leapt for the sack. He grabbed it, all the while the wind’s howl, the guttural moaning of the assailant now fighting Rob and Rosalind’s screams filling the room. Rosalind felt a hand seize her wrist, took a breath to scream some more, but realised that it was Michael pulling her out of the room with him.

She was half dragged up the stairs, hearing the crashing of more windows breaking, her flimsy high heels inadequate for their flight. When she slipped on the stairs, Michael hefted her up onto his shoulder and she found herself upside down in a fireman’s lift, her head next to the sack which was hung over his other shoulder. It smelt musty, and cold radiated from it, like she was hung next to an open fridge.

She heard Rob calling for help, but before she could gather her thoughts she found herself being carried up a second staircase, three stairs at a time, towards the top floor of the mansion. He ran the long corridor which formed the spine of the house, the moans and crashing sounds muffled by the floors and ceilings below them.

She was planted back down on the floor, as Michael reached up toward the ceiling at the end of the hallway. He hadn’t switched on any of the lights, she could barely see her hand in front of her face, so she clung to him, feeling his body stretching upwards.

There was a loud creak and he moved her aside as he pulled down a loft ladder. She was ushered up it as he followed with the sack still over his shoulder, to then pull it up behind them, gathering in the cord so it wasn’t exposed below. For a few moments there was nothing but the sound of them panting.

“Is there a light?” she whispered.

“Yes, but we should leave it off.”

“They won’t see it in the attic, will they? Please, please turn it on,” she whimpered.

There was a long pause then she heard him move, a click and the loft was lit by a single bulb hanging from the eaves. The attic space at this end of the house had been converted into an extra room with stud board walls, and those walls were covered with newspaper clippings, movie posters and pictures.

Every single one featured either her name in the headline or her photo and most often both.

He stood beneath the light bulb, the sack still gripped tightly but now by his side, blushing.

“I don’t know what to say,” he mumbled. “‘I’m your number one fan’ it seems…”

“It’s okay,” she lied, feeling that none of this was even remotely okay, but the last thing she was going to do was antagonise a stalker with zombies rampaging downstairs. “Oh my God!” she exclaimed. “Rob! We left Rob behind!”

He shook his head. “We can’t go back down there; I heard more of them coming in.”

“What are we going to do?” she whispered, trying so hard not to look at the pictures, or him, or the creepy sack for that matter. She resorted to staring at the loft hatch, the ladder folded beside it.

He didn’t answer immediately, but sat down next to her and put his arm around her. She wanted to push him away, but she had to be careful. He was obviously insane, this was all insane. She had to hold it together now.

“I meant what I said downstairs, before all this happened,” he whispered, curling a lock of her long blonde hair around his finger.

It made her feel sick.

“I don’t even understand what has happened,” she replied, steering away from his obsession. “Don, the photography director, he looked… like his neck was broken.” She felt him nod, but kept her eyes fixed on the hatch. “Rob was right, it is like a zombie film. It can’t be real, surely. They must all be down there right now, having a drink and laughing their asses off. Right?”

He turned to look at her, it was clear he didn’t agree. “I think I know what’s happening,” he said softly. He looked down at the sack.

She remembered when he was attacked. “Why did you want the sack to be opened?” she asked hesitantly. “It’s a weird thing to yell, you know, when… you know.” When he didn’t reply, she came out with it. “What’s in the sack Michael?”

He looked at her, his dark eyes shadowed by his frown. “Death.”

She blinked. “Death?”

“Yes,” he replied flatly. “I caught Death in this sack. I did it for you.”

A loud thump made her jump, made him tighten his grip on her. A moan rose through the floorboards; a zombie had followed them up the stairs, down the corridor, and sounded like he was prowling the hallway below.

“They followed us,” she whispered.

“They can sense it,” he replied, stroking her hair. “They’re looking for Death, I’m sure of it.”

She couldn’t stop herself from shaking. “Stop it, you’re frightening me.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m just telling you the truth. It’s how I could make you that offer. I caught Death in this bag so you and I will never die. We’ll stay as we are. Together, forever.”

She clenched her teeth, forcing herself to think. “If that’s true,” she said, “surely we’d still get old? We’d just never die, it would be awful.”

“No, I don’t believe that,” he replied quickly. “Death ages us by stealing the life from us every day. Then in the end he takes your whole life. Now he’s in this sack,” he tilted his head towards it, “he can’t take anything from us.”

The sound of the moaning was getting louder, a chilling harmonic of differing pitches below.

“But it also means that they’re not dead, when they should be,” Rosalind reasoned, pointing a finger at the loft hatch. She struggled to believe that she was even saying these words in real life; she wanted someone to call “Cut!” but she had the feeling they weren’t going to do that.
- Hide quoted text -

“I suppose so,” he said quietly. “It wasn’t part of the plan.”

“You planned this?” the question escaped her lips before she could rein it in.

He nodded. “I saw that the studio was scouting for a location and I’d pieced some clues together that it was for your next film. Once you were here and I got to know you, I knew my love hadn’t been wasted. You were just as beautiful as in the films. No, more so. Perfect.” He gazed at her hair. “I knew what I had to do, so I did it, I caught Death this evening whilst you were waving everybody off. I knew he’d be here, I planned everything.”

“How did you know he’d be here?” she asked, drawn in, believing him despite herself. He didn’t reply. He simply looked away towards the sack. Desperate to keep him sweet, she tried again, “How did you trap Death in that old sack?”

“It’s not just an old sack,” he whispered. “It’s been in my family for generations. An ancestor of mine, a soldier, traded it for his last biscuit. It traps anything that I order into it.”

“Even Death?”

“Even Death.”

She couldn’t recall whether it was better to encourage a psychopath’s delusion or to challenge it. “If you opened the sack, would he come out?”

“If I released him, yes.”

“Then those zombies – I mean people – would die… properly, and we’d be safe, right?”

“Yes, I suppose we would be.”

“Then Michael, please,” she implored, not even sure what she believed, “open the sack.”

He sighed and loosened his grip on the Hessian. “Death, I give you permission to leave,” he said, loud enough to make the zombies gathering beneath them moan even louder.

The light flickered. The room smelt of damp earth briefly and Rosalind felt something like a cold sigh waft past her, then there was the sound of several thuds below them, and the moaning finally stopped.

Michael sighed. “It’s done.”

She extricated herself from his grip and lifted the hatch slowly. She squealed and dropped it when she caught sight of her make up artist’s glassy eyes staring up at her. Several other bodies, mercifully still, were down there too, but she didn’t give herself time to take it in. Good God, did this mean he’d actually been telling the truth?

“It’s over!” she said, sinking to her knees, feeling suddenly exhausted. She expected him to say something, anything, like any relieved person would, but he didn’t. “Are you alright?” she asked, wondering if shock was setting in.

“I don’t know,” he said. “It depends on you. Will you stay with me? Even though I can’t give you eternal youth?”

She bit her lip. “Look, Michael, I’m flattered, but after tonight, I just want to go home to London. And see my therapist. And my manicurist. This place… well, I just don’t want to stay here. It’s been…” she glanced at the clippings all over the walls, “wonderful to meet you, and you have a beautiful home, but I have a life in London. A career, you know?”

“I was afraid you’d say that,” he sighed, opening the sack slowly. “Rosalind Wilder, I command you to get into this sack.”

She found herself walking towards it, even though she didn’t want to, even though she started to scream inside, even though she willed her legs to stop walking. As she climbed into the musty sack, tears rolling down her cheeks, her breath catching in her lungs, she saw him smiling at her. That same smile as the one downstairs over dinner.

“I’ll take care of you,” he whispered as he tucked wayward strands of her hair into the sack. “You said in The Daily Mail on October 4th 2009 that you’d be happy to be a kept woman, that there was no shame in being taken care of by a man that loves you.” She strained to call out, but nothing emerged. All she could do was curl up as the fabric was gathered, the gap closing above her. “I love you Rosalind. I’ll never let you go.”

Shadowcast 026 Bad Egg

Bad Egg

by Chris Bowsman

read by Paul E. Cooley

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I sit on a high stool near the end of the counter. It’s late, must be pushing three a.m. Still raining. The steaming mug of diner coffee takes the edge off the chill in my bones.

I’m waiting.

For what? I’ll know it when I see it. Until then, just waiting.

Anybody who spends more than ten minutes here leaves stinking like cigarettes and grease, but I don’t mind. I’m here almost every night, so you could say I’m used to it. Compared to what I often go home smelling like, the smoke and burnt-fat reek might as well be gardenias and honeysuckle.

I take a long drink of the coffee, the bitter black liquid burning down my throat, churning in my stomach. I shake a cigarette out of the pack and light it with my Zippo. The lighter chnks shut, and I take a deep drag. The double-lungful of smoke warms me like the coffee can’t. I exhale slowly, lost in the song on the jukebox, “Lonesome Town.” I think about when Marla and I used to come here, back before-

Commotion on the other side of the place drags me back from memory lane. Damn, I don’t even get to finish my smoke in peace.

Some dirtbag is waving his arms and screaming at the waitress. Apparently, his scrambled eggs were overdone, and he doesn’t plan on paying the bill. That’s fine. I wouldn’t want to pay for bad eggs, either.

It’s a shame he decides a dine-and-dash isn’t enough, that he has to hit the girl, shove her into the counter, and kick her on his way out. What kinda guy hits a waitress because of some eggs, eggs she didn’t even cook. I take another long, deep drag on my cigarette, stub it out in the glass tray, drain the rest of the coffee, and decide what kinda guy does that.

A dead guy.

–

The rain’s coming down hard, makes it tough to see. But I don’t need twenty-twenty to spot the sonofabitch from the diner. He’s about a half-block ahead of me, head down, both arms cinching his coat around himself. I pick up my pace a little, not too much, but enough to catch up with the guy before he can cover the remaining two blocks to the bus stop.

Two blocks with plenty of dark alleys.

Lightning strikes, followed quickly by a deafening thunder clap. I smile. Partly because, along with the rain, I like the lightning and thunder. No matter how big you ever get to feeling, a nearby flash-bang always puts it in perspective, makes you remember lots of things are a hell of a lot bigger.

Oh, and also because I plan on making some noise with this guy.

–

Before I catch up with him, I slip my hand under my coat, letting it rest on my Glock 17. I like the Glock. It’s an engineering marvel of simplicity, reliability, efficiency. Stick in a magazine, rack the slide, pull the trigger. No switches or gizmos to fool with. A lot of guys don’t like nine-millimeter, think it’s too weak. I don’t buy that. Shoot somebody in the face, they don’t care if it’s a nine-millimeter, forty-five, whatever.

Along with the Glock, I carry a pair of knives. Cold Steel Recon Tantos. These babies have seven-inch razor sharp blades, they’re balanced well enough for decent throwing, and they’re flat black, so they match the Glock.

Unfortunately, I think a lot of the subtleties are lost on the guys who get to see these babies up close. Most of the cretons seem like it wouldn’t matter to them if the knives were bright green and the Glock was hot pink.

Oh, well. I appreciate these things, and that’s what matters. Like Ricky Nelson said,

you can’t please everyone, so you gotta please yourself.

–

I’m still lagging behind Mister Temper Tantrum by about a quarter of a block. He peaks over his shoulder, gets a look at me. Not a good one, but enough to spook him.

He picks up his pace a little.

I double mine.

About the time he decides to take another glance over his shoulder, I’m within twenty feet of him, closing fast. No way he’s going to make it to the bus stop. I can smell the panic from here. Probably has no idea why I’m even following him. But that’s okay.

I know well enough for both of us.

There’s another lightning strike. I smile. Couldn’t have planned this better.

I pull out the Glock, and put one in the back of his knee right in time with the accompanying thunderclap. He screams and goes down like a ten-dollar whore in the back seat of a Buick. The heavy rain immediately washes away the blood pouring from his ruined leg.

Like I said, couldn’t have planned this better.

I pick the guy up with my left hand, drag him into one of the alleyways. Doesn’t matter which; they’re all dark, smell like piss, and are strewn with garbage and filth.

He’ll fit right in.

“Ughh, my leg… ,” he mumbles.

Christ. He’s crying.

I shake my head. “Should’ve paid for the eggs, pal-”

“Take my wallet, money, I… ”

“Shut up and let me finish. I was gonna say that you should’ve paid for the eggs. And that hitting women ain’t a very nice thing to do.” I put my Glock back in its holster, and lift the guy up about eight inches, so we’re at eye level. I slam him against an old wood door, pull out one of the knives, and drive it through his chest, just under his collarbone, pinning him to the door. He screams.

Too bad for him the streets are empty at this time of night, and with all the rain and thunder, nobody’s gonna hear him.

He looks up at me, hair plastered down to his forehead, rain and snot running down his face. He gets a good look at me for the first time.

I take off my hat for the full effect. There’s another lightning strike as he stares at my bald head, at the scar that runs from where the hair line would be, down my forehead, across my eye and mouth, down to my chin. I give him my best smile, and he screams again.

I’m used to it. I tend to have that effect on people. Particularly the ones I’ve just shot and pinned up in an alley.

Guy tries to say something, but I can’t make it out. I shake my head. First he’s a tough guy, beating on the girl, now he’s Mister Sensitive, blubbering and crying. Not a chance I’m gonna lose any sleep over this one.

“I think that’s about enough from you,” I say, producing the other knife. I step to the side and draw the black carbon steel blade across his throat slowly, severing his trachea and jugular. Blood sprays then flows from the cut, sputtering and gurgling with each futile attempt at a breath. Couple seconds later and he’s dead, most of the blood already washed away.

Thank God for the rain.

–

Now, maybe you’re thinking that this was all a bit harsh, that maybe I overreacted a little. Maybe this sorta thing should be handled by the police. Maybe a night in the slammer would’ve turned the guy around.

Yeah, maybe.

And maybe this guy doesn’t just beat up waitresses, but also his wife, and his kids. Maybe tonight when he got home, his wife was gonna ask him why he was so late. Maybe he wouldn’t like the tone in her voice, and he’d let her know it with his fists. Maybe when the racket woke up his kids, he’d tuck them back into bed with those same fists.

Maybe now his wife finds a guy who’s good to her, a guy who treats her right. Maybe his son doesn’t grow up to beat on women, and his daughter doesn’t grow up letting guys beat on her.

Maybe that damn song in the diner got to me, got me thinking about things I’ve lost, things that have been taken from me.

We could play this “maybe” game all night. Maybe some other time.

Right now, I got things to do.

–

I wipe the blade on his jacket, re-sheathe it, then grasp the handle of the one still pinning him to the door. I place my other hand against the wall, and with a hard yank, my knife is free, and Mister Dead Guy drops to the ground.

Before I leave, I feel through the guy’s pockets for that wallet he was talking about. I find it, remove a couple bills, then return it. I put my hat back on, and exit the alley, leaving the bastard in a heap of the scum that he is.

–

I open up the door to the diner, and the little bell above the door dings. The waitress has a bruise on her face, and she’s holding her arm kinda funny, but looks okay otherwise. I walk up and lay a handful of wet, wrinkled bills on the counter in front of her.

“This oughta square up things from earlier. You know, the eggs.”

She looks at the money, then back at me, one eyebrow raised a little. I look down, and see there’s some blood smeared on one of the singles. I look back at her, and shrug.

I turn to leave, and as I’m halfway out the door, the waitress stops me. She’s holding a to-go cup of coffee. “Hey. For your trouble.”

I take the coffee and nod slightly, and turn back towards the door.

“Must’ve been a total pain in the neck getting the money from that guy,” she says.

I shake my head, walk out the door and laugh quietly, “Not mine, anyway.”

ShadowCast 025 Deadly Heirloom

Deadly Heirloom

by Effie Collins

Read by Jason Warden

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Dew-cooled morning air swirled lightly around Mike’s knobby and exposed knees; he was still in his boxer shorts. Fifteen damn minutes trying to remember what he’d forgotten and it was his trousers of all things.

“Old age makes a fool of all men,” he said to his screen-enclosed porch. “Especially me.”

With the memory fading and arthritis eating his joints away, he was ready to just quit. He had old people’s disease, rotting in inches, smelling the stink of his own death creep up to greet him from his toes. He knew he was a goner within a few years, maybe months yeah, but he still felt like a man with more years in him. But old men fade to time, as they all do. He was.

Next to the door leading outside stood what he needed. Despite the pain, he must never dare forget this, the most sacred of his morning rituals. She had, of course, earned her own comfort. But not until he’d put on some pants.

In the seven years since his retirement, if it hadn’t been for Kilo, he’d have starved at times. Long, hard stretches of months when the electric company upped the charges, always careful to put their little “E” for “Estimated Service Rates” in the proper column. He didn’t have electric heating and shouldn’t have to pay more in the winter, to his mind. He was a gas man, always had been.
“You can’t kill what’s already in nature. Wood, rock, mineral and yes, gas, were things the Earth gave us to use”, Pa had said.
His voice was gentle and even, but still firm. Always firm.
“Using what she gives, now that’s straight, boy.”
He’d taken it to heart and, as a man, had taken his viewpoint as far as he could. But he ended up paying the increased rates anyway. And during the long winter months, his dog had been his savior. She gave him the extra money to eat, to stay warm. After basic needs, there was no extra money in the winter. She provided that when nothing else would.

But now she was getting old, too old to fight anymore. Some of the young cats down at the ring said he should just put her down when she started losing, but no. Not his girl. He owed her his life.

His very life.

He owed her and as far as he was concerned, she was worth the pain filled trip outside, even when the weather was bad. He couldn’t keep her in, no. She was too big for his tiny house. He tried, for a while. She got her own house when she broke the TV set.

And a nice house it was, too. His only child, Malcolm, had thrown a fit, but he didn’t care. After sixty-seven years on this planet, he was fairly certain he had a right to do whatever he fam-damn liked. His boy could have a calf if it suited, but Kilo had gotten her house, yes indeed. Oh sure, it was a fifteen year old mobile home parked in his yard, but it was hers. Everything in the place belonged to Kilo. Her bed covers, her beer, her newspaper. The girl was set up smart, but by God, she’d earned it. Every bit. Other than Saturday nights, the girl was queen of the scene, mistress of her own house with no master, just her friend, big Mike.

So out he went every morning, rain, snow, sleet, or hail, as the P.O. puts it, and crossed the nearly acre long yard to his dog’s house without complaint. And now, he’d do it again. This time his trousers would go with him.

He grabbed a three-pound coffee can full of dry dog food from the bin next to the door and went out.

He couldn’t help loving her at all; she was as much his child as Malcolm—little Mikey—had ever been. He bought her as a pup, raised her. Mikey never thought of her as anything more than an annoyance.

‘Dad, she’s a dog, for fuck’s sake.’

‘But she’s my dog, Mikey.’

‘You shouldn’t even have a pit bull. They’re dangerous.’

‘Are you shitting me? Dangerous? Kilo?’ He’d laughed, of course, and that had sent poor Mikey into another hissy fit, but he couldn’t help it. His namesake got the best of him at the worst times.

‘I’m not joking a bit, Dad. You see it on the news all the time.’

‘But those dogs are not my girl. She’d never hurt me.’

And then Mikey had said something; something wrong, something mean and spiteful and downright wicked for any son to say to his father.

‘But you hurt her plenty, don’t you Dad?’

Oh the nerve of that boy! If he’d have known what was good for him, he’d have kept his trap shut, but no. That child just widened that cocksucking hole of his until it burst and yes, Mike had socked the boy. Right in the nose, the little shit.

Mikey had never come back. His wife called. Once.

How could you, Mike? Over a dog! I tried to talk to him, but he says he’s done with you and your shit-bitch, as he put it. I’ve done what I could, but I doubt he’ll be back around. Maybe if you came over in a month or so…

He told her that was fine, just fine. Little Mikey’d come around after a while. But he hadn’t and as it turned out, that was just fine too. It was nice to not have to defend your income every time company came around.

He crossed the worn down swatch of fenced in yard surrounding Kilo’s house, mounted the porch steps and moved to the door; he could hear her barking inside, a low and grumbling grawoof that so many people shied from, but he adored. She was hungry, he’d taken a whole extra thirty-five minutes and girl wanted her breakfast. She knew he was out there listening and another impatient howl sounded through the metal door. This was their game, but today she was having none of it.

She was an obedient bitch pit, and as beautiful as any dog of the same breed. Pits were lovely animals and none deserved the treatment they’d gotten. Hell, some of the boys down at the ring didn’t even name their dogs, just assigned them numbers like a government experiment. But not him. No, he loved his girl. She was not an instrument for his gain, but her skills had helped pay for her. She paid for herself ten times over.

Laughing, Mike pushed the door open. She paced, back and forth, back and forth between him and her food dish. She wrinkled her eyebrows, a very human expression for a dog, and snarled low, questioning.

“You want a little to nibble while I mix up this other, huh?” he asked. Her answering tail wag was enough.
“Just a little though. You know how this shit makes you heave when it’s dry.”

Shaking a little into her bowl, he nuzzled the top of her head with his whiskers, just how she liked. Her gentle nip on his cheek; quick kiss, gotta go, food is waiting, Daddy-o. Such is the affection between master and pet.

He straightened and started to turn to the wall mounted cabinets to get out the canned dog food when pain exploded in his chest and up his left arm. A grunt rumbled in his throat and the coffee can clattered to the floor, kibble skittering here and there. His tried to move forward, but his right side, the important side because he was right-hand dominant, refused to move. Numbness spread through him and he pitched forward. The room brightened, then went dark and for a while, he knew nothing.

‘Dad, you have to stop this. You’re going to get caught one day.’

‘Then I’ll deal with it, Mikey. Stop harping on me about it.’

‘I can’t stop. What if she gets hurt bad at one of those fights? You’ll be all to pieces.’

‘She won’t get hurt, Mikey. She’s good.’

She was good. A good dog, a good friend. A good fighter. He loved how she sounded when she was happy… but wait.

He knew that sound. The first sound, not the terrible nuh-nuh-nuh he heard, but the other sound. That rumbling half growl.

Kilo.

Nuh turned to guh and Mike realized that he was speaking. That garbled, strangled sound was him. His voice.

No, he thought. I can’t. Not in here, they’ll never find me–won’t even look.

“Guh-cmuh-guh.”

Girl, c’mere girl.

He could smell that faint clean-dog smell her house always had, a combination of flea shampoo and coconut conditioner that he’d come to love. The high-traffic carpeting beneath his face squished as his mouth worked to form words that wouldn’t come out. Hot, sticky liquid pooled further around his head–his blood. He could smell it too now, that coppery metallic scent. He’d smelled it a thousand times at the fighting rings.

And that sound, that low gut growl that had caused so many fighting dogs to shiver and shake in their corners. Mike’s eyes jittered to and fro, looking for his girl. His Kilo.

‘What a fucking name for a dog, Dad.’

Maybe so. Maybe so.

“Es Guh, nuh-nuh-guh. Ba Ba, Ki-ki. Ki-ki!”

That’s good, no no girl. Back, Back Kilo. Kilo!

He could see her now, her snow and cream fur covered with wretched scars, her roving, expressive amber eyes–eyes alight with hunger. With need.

The very need he’d taught her.

Two fat tears rolled out of his eyes and onto the cheap carpeting, briefly lightening the blood which had now seeped through the fabric and rubber backing into the plywood sheeting beneath. He glanced up and saw blood—and a large clot of what looked like scalp and hair—smeared on the counter top. He must have hit his head when he went down. She sniffed at the clotted mess, lapped it once with her long, pink tongue and turned to him. She could smell him, of course, but now she had the taste.

Blood, blood always blood. Dogs get a taste for it and it was this that made him understand what he saw in her eyes. She’d looked the same way in the ring a thousand times, as her many scars showed. A thousand times.

That taste for blood.

She circled him, pacing back and forth. He spied the coffee can and it’s spilled contents, left forgotten in the floor. She smelled something better, something she’d lived for once a week since he’d trained her to fight.

“Nuh! Nuh!” He tried to force an arm up, willed it to go, but no response from those death-heavy limbs. His son had betrayed him, his dog would soon, why not his body too? Fuck it if it did. He’d go to his Hell just as easily as the next. His own fucking heart had given up on him and gave him a concussion to boot. Well, booger the lot of them. He was done.

Years my ass, he thought. I’m going out now, and damn me to hell, that boy of mine’ll get my dog. He’ll turn her into some kind of pussy house dog, no doubt. Should have put her down, boy. Yes indeed. But I owed her. Owed her my life, I did. He thought of his son taking Kilo home with him and how his little granddaughter, Sheree, had just turned four. Lots of cuts and scrapes and accidents to come… lots of blood. And dear God above, she’s got a taste for it now. A taste for blood—human blood.

Pain shot through his legs as his pet, his beloved Kilo, fell to her feast, ripping through his flesh and to the bone. He would have screamed, but his throat refused to make any sound other than that awful nuh-nuh-nuh.

ShadowCast 024 Soulless Vessel

Soulless Vessel

by Kimberly Grenfell

Read by Mathew Grenfell

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Slit her throat from ear to ear. Let her feel the pain. Make her writhe in her own lifeblood.
Lamont slid down the corridor of the manor house. With his hand upon the dagger’s hilt, he crept toward the open study door where a single lantern spilled light onto the floor. The black mist swirled before him, though he needed no coaxing. He’d killed for it once; a second time would make no difference.
Slip in, slip out, and be silent. Let them find her body. You will get your reward.
Lamont peered around the doorpost. At the desk near the window, a girl busied herself with her studies, back turned and head bent over the tome from which she copied her lessons. A silver ribbon gathered her red curls. A lantern hung nearby.
Pathetic, he thought.

She works late, the voice rasped. How fortunate for you.

Fortunate, indeed. His half sister never worked this late. The second sun had long set; a pink sliver of moon crested the eastern horizon. Lamont’s gaze searched the corridor. Where was the girl’s keeper? Surely she was ever watchful, but now? Pity such a valuable seven-year-old had been left unguarded. And if the keeper showed herself?
No matter. He was twice the girl’s age, thrice her strength. Her death would fuel the master’s power within, enough to kill the keeper if needed.
Lamont pressed against the wall. His grip tightened around the dagger’s hilt. The mist expanded, pulsating with desire and radiating with an angry heat. It wanted to feed—now. Lamont stretched his pointed nails to it.
“I’m at your mercy, my dark master,” he whispered. “Do with me what you will.” And he braced himself for the impact.
The force struck him like a fist. Face twisted, Lamont convulsed, fighting against the give of his knees as the blackness poured in. It coursed through his blood like an acrid toxin, clawing down his spine and into his limbs, tainting his flesh. A screech ripped through his mind. Lamont clutched his head, doubling over. Teeth gritted, he bit back his own scream. . . .
Silence.
Lamont slowly opened his eyes. Misty blackness veiled his vision. He smacked his lips, tasting the tang of blood, and he grinned, reveling in the churlish feel of the dark master’s power. As it had once been, so it was now—he was omnipotent.
Kill her!
Lamont bolted through the doorway. In a trice he was upon the girl, seizing her and dragging her from the chair. He crushed her close and pressed the dagger tip to her throat.
“One sound, my dear sister, and I will thrust this through your neck.”
The girl whimpered, trembling, her small grip tight upon his arm. Lamont buried his nose into her nape and inhaled. The scent of fear swelled thick in his nostrils, and he shivered at his unexpected arousal—a delectable new experience. His craving for torture piqued.
What are you waiting for—kill her!
Lamont chuckled. Kill her? Why? Why should he kill her, when absorbing her terror was far more . . . satisfying?
“I see you’re all alone,” he said. “And what exactly are you doing, Marisa—playing pretend? Studying for a leadership you aren’t fit to take?” His laughter resonated up from his chest. “Let’s see how well you play pretend with me.” And he traced the blade across her throat. The blade nicked, and Marisa flinched.
“Oh . . .” Lamont caressed her cheek. “What a shame; I’ve cut you.” He wiped the bead of blood with his fingertip, then drew it along his tongue. His eyes rolled back. Salty. Sweet. Terrified. The dark master writhed within.
Give me her soul—now!
Lamont’s passion throbbed, and his mouth twisted with a stiff grin. Marisa began to weep.
“Please, Lamont, please don’t kill me. I’ll do anything—anything. Just please . . . don’t kill me.”
“Oh?” He cocked his head. “Anything, you say?” And Marisa nodded, still sobbing.
Lamont’s brow lifted. Interesting. What could he make her do in the seductive clutches of her fear?
Kill her!
Pain sliced his arm and into his fingers. Lamont winced. He gripped the hilt and steadied the dagger, fighting the urge to slit Marisa’s throat. As the fury ebbed, Lamont’s arousal deepened, and he sought more.
“So,” he whispered, “you’ll do anything I say.”
“Yes. . . .”
“Really, now?” He pressed her closer. “Would you grovel to spare your life?”
“Yes. . . .” Marisa’s voice thinned, barely an audible breath, and Lamont stroked her sweaty forehead, brushed his fingers down her temple.
“Then perhaps you’d carve my name into the flesh over your heart?”
Marisa’s words choked, and she nodded. Lamont grinned. So innocent, so vulnerable. . . .
Kill her!
The dark master snarled, and again Lamont strained against its wrath, consumed by his lust for domination. Last time, the master had control and bid Lamont to slip the blade into its victim’s heart, but this time? Oh, this time, this pathetic excuse for an heir—and her luring scent of terror—was his.
“How desperate are you, Marisa?” Lamont brushed his cracked lips against her ear like a sick lover. “What are you willing to sacrifice to be released from your fear? Would you carry out my secret desire?” he asked. “Would you . . . murder your own father?”
Marisa gasped. A shriek pierced the air. Lamont spun around. In the doorway stood the keeper, her gray eyes wild with rage.
A vehement cry, and the keeper lunged toward him. Marisa wrenched free. Lamont raised the dagger, expecting a surge of power to plunge the blade into the oncoming virago . . . but he doubled over and vomited a black ooze that splattered onto the floor and seeped into the cracks between the planks. His vision cleared, and a chill gripped his spine.
“Out!” the keeper cried, and she knocked the dagger from his hand. “Out, you vile whoreson!” Seizing him by the shoulders, she thrust him through the doorway.
Lamont stumbled down the corridor, spitting gobs of black. Curse the Maker! He smacked the walls. Greedy. He’d hungered for the delicious sensation swollen by his half sister’s fear, and the dark master had drained him, left him unable to fight against a female. Stupid. Shameful. Pathetic.
He collapsed, prone at his bedchamber’s threshold, breaths shallow and cheek mashed to the floor. Marisa’s screams mixed with the keeper’s shrill voice brought forth a heavy onrush of footfalls and the enraged bellow of his stepfather.
Though he struggled to rise, Lamont’s strength refused to return, and he slumped in groaning defeat to await his fate. As it had once been, so it was now—he was impotent, ravaged by the dark master. He braced himself for the grasp that would force him into exile for treason.
But no matter. The mist would seek him out again, and he would experience the rapturous height of his fear-driven lust another time. Because, after all, the master needed a soulless vessel in order to feed.

Kimberly’s website: imaginationether.blogspot.com
Matthew’s website: grenfellmusic.net

This podcast story uses the following sound files from Freesound (www.freesound.org) in order of appearance:
Introduction music [ambience07_Internal] from yewbic
Dark Master pulsation [Noise growing into metallic drone] from Nosebleed Cinema
Striking force [Dumpster_Kicking] from SunnySideSound
Lamont’s possession [eerie strings] from ERH and [crash1_reverse] from Halleck
Marisa’s gasp [Gasp] from Isprice
Chair clatter [malexmedia_woodbangB] from malexmedia
Lamont’s inhalation [deepbreath] from billipo
Lamont’s wince [tense_stinger_A1] from Jackie4Ever
Dark Master growl [GrowlSnarl] from Jamius
Seeping ooze [hallow drone] from DJ Chronos
Hand smack [32] from adcbicycle
Dagger clatter [dagger1] from Halleck
Lamont’s collapse [thud bassy slam] from kyles
Ending music [ambience07_Internal] from yewbi

ShadowCast 023 Channel Six by Simon Cox

Channel Six

by Simon Cox

read by Jason Warden

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The look of the apartment block gave me a chill the wind couldn’t. It was a grim cube of concrete and steel, designed by a communist architect during an age that knew no joy. The low winter sky leached the life from it like a sponge. The inside was little better – a kitchen, a bathroom and a living room with a sofa that doubled as a bed, each room austere, silent and brutally functional. I placed my suitcase beside the sofa. I was tired. The flight had been fine, but the man that the company had said would come to meet me hadn’t turned up, so I had been forced to negotiate a taxi from the airport to the apartment block using little more than sign language. The taxi driver had rolled his eyes and chewed brittle Slavonic words that I assumed were curses.
Outside the apartment, the sun sank below an unfamiliar horizon and darkness crowded at the window. I turned the light on, but jealous shadows still lurked in the corners of the room. At least there was a television for company; I picked up the grey plastic brick of a remote control, pressed the red button and tinny laughter from a lurid variety show flooded into the room. Four clicks took me from a dated drama programme to an old black-and-white film via two sets of news, each read by newscasters that looked like mourning fathers. None of the channels was subtitled or dubbed, and as such I found them disorienting and virtually unwatchable.
A sixth channel, however, showed something quite different. On this channel there was a man lying in a hospital bed in a stark, white-tiled room, motionless and bathed in a faintly bluish light that made everything look chilly and artificial. Nothing more. The bed was too far away from the camera for me to make out his face, and there was no speech and no music; in fact there was no sound at all except for the occasional faint noise of footsteps echoing in the background. At first I thought it was a still image, that the visual transmission had become frozen, but then I noticed a cockroach slither across the tiled floor.
I watched for ten full minutes, entranced, waiting for something to happen, but nothing did. The anonymous man just lay there. After a while I was surprised to find that the surgical nature of the room made me feel a little nauseous, so I turned off the set. I took Sarah’s note out of my pocket and read the last line.
Don’t worry, it said, It’s only for six months.
I looked around the apartment.
“Six months,” I said.
I folded out the sofa and turned off the light. As I settled down to sleep I noticed that the bare plaster walls made my breathing echo slightly, so that it seemed as though there were someone else in the room with me.
The next day, my first at the facility, was difficult. English had not been part of the curriculum when this country had been jealously hidden behind the Iron Curtain, and the most that my co-workers could muster for me was a self-conscious “hello”. The only person with whom I could really communicate was Vasilyi, whom the company had appointed as my assistant for the duration of the project. “I study economic in UK,” he told me with pride, but even with his help every aspect of the day bewildered me. I left work at five o’clock that evening with a dull headache.
The air in the deserted street was cold and dry, and it chilled my lungs as I inhaled. When I reached the block I hurried inside to my apartment, but I discovered that it was barely warmer than outside and remembered that I hadn’t set the heating the previous day. I left my overcoat on as I heated some beans on the stove.
I thought it odd that Sarah hadn’t called, but when I turned on my mobile phone I saw that it had no signal. I felt further from home than I had ever been, and I began to wonder whether coming here hadn’t all been a huge mistake. The light from the screen on my phone dyed my fingers a luminescent green, as though it were the initial symptom of some kind of malady of isolation that was growing within me.
I sat down on the sofa with a plate of beans on toast and scanned the television channels again. I could see my breath in front of my face. The first five channels were still utterly incomprehensible to me, but I was surprised to see that channel six was showing the same programme as it had the previous night. I noticed a few subtle differences; the camera seemed to have moved a little closer to the bed – though not close enough to make out the identity of the bed’s occupant – and the cracked plastic chair beside the bed had been moved. Beside the bed I could see an outdated monitor in a thick plastic housing showing the feeble pulsing of the man’s heart.
Looking at him lying there made me feel uncomfortable, but I felt an overwhelming compulsion to watch the slow rise and fall of the man’s chest, if only to see if anything would happen. After all, what else was there for me to do?
I don’t know whether it was the intolerable inertia of the scene or the dawning recognition of that very same aspect within my own life, but as I watched I became aware of a sense of dread mounting within me. With every pulse on the monitor the feeling rose until eventually the malevolent stillness in that tiled room became unbearable and I was forced to tear myself away from the television. I lurched into the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face. I looked at myself in the mirror; the whites of my eyes were speckled with red. Mist from my breath bloomed on the glass of the mirror and then faded to nothing.
Suddenly the silence was punctuated by a sharp spike of white noise from the living room. I hurried back in to see that the camera had moved closer still to the man in the hospital bed. I peered uneasily at the screen. I could now make out signs of grime on the sheets, and I saw that the angry red marks that I had thought were bruises on the man’s arm were in fact open sores. An involuntary shivering gripped me, and I quickly turned the television off.
I spent the rest of the evening reading the company orientation literature that Vasilyi had provided for me, but I eyed the television with suspicion, and I could not escape the feeling that there was a presence other than myself in the room. It was with some degree of unease that I eventually went to bed.
I was woken during the night by the sound of a woman sobbing. When I opened my eyes I found that the room was washed in a cold blue light, the source of which I soon realised was the television. I looked over at the table, but the remote control wasn’t there. My heart thudded in my chest as I propped myself up in bed to look around for it, and then I noticed the screen; to my horror it was showing the hospital programme again. The camera had moved even closer to the bed, and I would have been able to make out the man’s face if he hadn’t been lying on his side. His fingers were thin, hooked like claws, and all the while the woman continued her wretched weeping and moaning. I shivered.
I pulled my gaze away from the screen and spotted the remote control lying face down on the floor beside the sofa bed; I told myself that I must have knocked it off the table in my sleep. I snatched it up and turned the television off. I laid back in bed but I didn’t get back to sleep for some time. I couldn’t get the sound of the woman’s sobbing out of my mind.
“You look tired,” said Vasilyi when I arrived at work the next day, “Do you sleep?”
“Not well,” I said. “Listen, have you seen the television programme about the man in the hospital bed?”
“No,” he said.
I spent most of the afternoon staring out of the window at the sky as the day slid past me, and I found myself returning to my apartment with reluctance. The blank walls seemed somehow menacing and the view from the windows was dark and oppressive, so despite my unease I turned to the television as a last resort for companionship. I found, to my relief, that channel two was showing an old James Bond film. It was dubbed, so that Sean Connery sounded just like the 1960s Soviet villains that he was always trying to foil, but even with this handicap I found the familiarity of it childishly comforting. I left it playing in the background as I went into the kitchen to prepare dinner. Gunshots, squealing tyres and that unmistakeable music accompanied me as I chopped vegetables.
Then I heard a sudden snap of static, followed by a familiar silence. I ran back into the living room, and my stomach turned as I saw that the television had tripped onto channel six again. The camera was very close to the man in the hospital bed now, and I could see plastic tubes looping away from his arm and up into a bag that hung from a metal stand. I reached for the remote control, but as I did so I noticed with horror that now the man in the bed was moving, beginning to sit upright. He was emaciated, far beyond the point of malnourishment, and his skin was drawn tight over his bones like a drum; thin hair hung limply from his head in strands, and his eyes stared out at me from deep in blackened sockets. Then he raised his arm and pointed straight at the camera, straight at me, and said something. He repeated it three times, in a voice that sounded like paper being torn, and then his eyes rolled back and he began to scream. I couldn’t bear to look at it, even less to hear it, and I jabbed furiously at the remote control until the television died. With a tremulous hand I wrote down the phonetic approximation of the phrase on a scrap of paper.
I took the piece of paper to work with me the next day and showed it to Vasilyi.
“Where are you hear this?” he asked, frowning.
“On television,” I said.
“Oh. Good.”
“Why? What does it mean?”
“It means ‘You are going to die’.”
He pulled a face and laughed. I tried to join in with him, but couldn’t.
I put up some pictures in my office at the facility in an attempt to combat the drab décor of the room, but there was little I could do to ignore the fatalistic atmosphere that now hung heavily around me. At lunchtime I used the unwieldy desk phone in my office to call Sarah.
“Are you OK?” she said, her voice distorted by electronics and distance, “I haven’t been able to get through.”
“I’m fine,” I said, “I can’t get a signal on my mobile over here, that’s all.”
We talked for a time, using practicalities to avoid touching on the subjects that we both knew would have to be discussed sooner or later.
“Your voice sounds shaky,” she said, “Are you sure everything is all right?”
“No, I’m…I’m fine. I’ve been having some problems settling in, but…it’s just good to hear your voice, you know?”
Then the line crackled and went silent, and when I dialled the number again I got a dead tone. Vasilyi told me that it happened a lot. I didn’t know whether or not she heard the last part.
Five o’clock arrived at my office with brutal inexorability, and, rather than return to the apartment I took the bus to the concrete shopping arcade and browsed without purpose through stark, alien shops; the thought of seeing the man in that awful hospital bed again prompted a cold nausea to rise within my stomach. I tried to hide myself amongst hunched, wintry people, but they spread away from me, and no-one would look me in the eye. At seven o’clock the security guards closed the arcade and I found myself in a litter-blown alcove with nowhere to go but back to the apartment block.
I was the only passenger on the bus that carried me along the chilly streets and back to the apartment. The driver said something to me as I got off, but I hid down in my coat and pretended not to hear him as the bus pulled away to reveal the apartment block. It reared up in front of me, ugly and mute, its darkened windows like hollow eye sockets. As I climbed the stairs a weight seemed to settle itself upon my shoulders.
I paused in front of the door to my apartment, the key clammy in my hand. The corridor was silent and empty, and the buzzing fluorescent lights soaked it in a surgical ambience. I swallowed, turned the key in the lock and opened the door, and, even though I had been half expecting it, the sight of blue light flickering on the wall from the television terrified me.
I rushed in to turn it off, barely thinking to close the door behind me, but as I fumbled for the remote control I could not help but notice what was on the screen. The camera was now positioned at the foot of the hospital bed, looking up towards that hideous face. I saw a cockroach weave its way across the pillow, and I saw that the monitor positioned beside the bed was dead. Hung over the foot of the bed was a clipboard with a sheet fixed to it. On the paper there were two words. I snatched up the pocket dictionary that the company had given me and flicked through the pages, my hands shaking. The first word was brain. I turned the pages looking for the second, knowing what it would be but still dreading the awful confirmation. My trembling finger drew across the page and came to rest upon the word.
Tumour.
The words seemed to be burned onto the page rather than printed, bolder and darker than mere ink.
I heard a click and the rush of white noise, and looked up from the dictionary to see that the terrible hospital scene had been replaced by a hissing static that competed with the heavy throbbing of blood in my ears. I dropped the dictionary and groped at the remote control, flicking through the other channels, faster and faster, but they were all the same. The white noise grew louder and louder until it reverberated throughout the room and inside my head, making my head ache, making me feel sick, forcing me to clamp my hands over my ears. I clenched my teeth, screwed my eyes shut and collapsed down onto the sofa, sweating and breathing heavily, begging it to stop.
Then there was silence.
Hesitantly, fearfully, I opened my eyes and pulled my hands from my ears. The white noise was gone, but the television had returned to the familiar hateful blue of channel six. I didn’t want to look at it, couldn’t bear to look, but I couldn’t stop myself. The camera had retreated to the position it had occupied on the very first time that I had seen the channel, but this time the bed itself was empty, and the sheets had been changed and smoothed as though in anticipation of a new patient.
“Oh no,” I said. I began to feel dizzy.
I felt a warm sensation on my lip and looked down to see a spot of blood on my shirt. I touched a finger to my nose. It had started to bleed.

ShadowCast 022 Black Lodge

Black Lodge

by T.H. Davis

read by Jason Warden

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Free Undercroft Stories PDF

ShadowCast 021 Candy’s Mother

Candy’s Mother

by C.T. Thieme

read by C.T. Thieme

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The River is a perfect mother. She supports you, sustains you, even rocks you softly to sleep, but always with the requirement that you keep yourself afloat. There’s a calm veneer of indifference in her tone. Her true sentiments are rarely spoken outright, yet the power of her love is constantly felt. Her recipe for success in raising children lies in a portion of love just enough to help you grow combined with a challenge, a challenge to rise to your potential and meet your own high water mark. Her love is burdened with full knowledge that the world you will enter does not love you and will not ever love you the way she does. This is the pain first felt in the throws of labor, the pain that never dies. This is the pain of a mother’s love.
We’ve all had boat dreams. That’s what we call them. Even in the middle of winter they’ll come with the full smell of water and heat of summer. A million variations on the same theme. Tonight, I have a boat dream.
The boat, our boat, is the Julia Belle Swain. She’s a stern-wheeled steam ship, an anachronistic Twanian archetype pulled through a wrinkle in time by Captain Dennis Trone. Three decks stepped like a wedding cake with two tall black smoke stacks with bulbs and feathers at the top towering over the box-topped pilot house. Her engines have pushed more than a million miles behind them at a top speed of 14 miles per hour. She’s got enough age on an ancient Mississippi and enough of our sweat, love and secrets to make a world of her own…
I wake up in my sleeping bag and to my surprise I’m sleeping on railroad tracks that descend straight down the steep bluff towards the Mississippi below.. I hear Christine’s voice, full of panic; she’s calling my name.
“Get off the track! Get off the track!” she yells. “It’s coming! The train’s coming!”
I don’t waste a moment. Heeding her words, I wrestle free from the sleeping bag and scramble off. I feel relief, but she’s still screaming.
“Get off the track!”
“Christine, I’m ok,” I shout back. “I’m off.”
But she still keeps yelling.
Then the train comes. I see it tearing down the river bluff, tearing through where I was sleeping.
“Oh my god!” she screams. “Oh my god, no!”
“Christine, it ok, I’m off the track.”
But then I see the front of the train. On it is a body. My body.
Now for some reason being in my body attached to the front of a train hurtling down a hillside towards the largest River in the continental United States was preferable to being safe and sound sans body. Can’t argue with dream logic, I suppose.
“Best get back in it,” and no sooner had I thought this than it was done.
As the train continues down the slope, the speed pulls and strains at my limbs. Pieces of me start flying off, first an arm, then a leg, not really painful, just disconcerting. Then there is nothing more than this white light coming from the middle of my chest. I look up to see the River coming to meet us, and the world went out.
I’m in a basement. I have no body. I’m floating. Daylight streams through windows set high in the concrete walls making for strange shafts through the dusty air. Large translucent pieces of plastic hang from the rafters and move slowly from an unfelt wind. I float towards one of the windows and easily slip through. Coming up the front of the house, I see the front porch. A small child sits there crying. Going up to the child, I ask without words what is the matter. The child’s tear stained eyes look into me. The child raises a finger, pointing up. I float up the outside of the house finally stopping at the attic window.
Behind the window screams a woman. Her eyes are wild. Her hair swirls like Medusa’s snakes. She tears at the apron she is wearing and slashes her hands against the window frame. Everything about her appearance is horrifying, insane, terrifying, but I am not afraid. Despite everything I see in her dark face, I feel…pain. She is in pain. Without a break in the epileptic tantrums, she tells me everything. She loves the child, more dearly and deeply than I can ever understand, but she is dead, and the child, alive. His fear of her keeps her from him. She wants him to know how much she loves him, but he can’t get past his fear.
Somehow, I don’t remember how, I pulled her through the window and guided her down to the child. They are looking at each other. Calm. Deep. Her hand holds his, and the dream fades.
The next morning, at breakfast, I write it all down.
Another 12 hour day has ended, and we’ve come back to our wharf boat, the Baton Rouge in LeClaire, IA. Julia is tied up securely to her side. Orlando Lowe, O, as we call him, had been on the boat since his early teens. He’d come aboard to swap the inner city of Peoria for a broom and the clean view of the River and has never left. O, Christine, Smokin’ Tom and I ordered a pizza and rented a movie. We’ve stuffed ourselves full of pepperoni and beer and are now settling into O’s room as he’s the only one with a VCR. We’re crowded all onto his bed as Smokin’ Tom pops in Child’s Play 2. Then O says in his calm tone, “I had the strangest dream last night.”
The hair rises on my neck. My blood runs cold. And that ain’t cliche when it’s happening to you. I find myself saying, “tell us about your dream, O.”
“I had a dream that I went back to my old house in Peoria. I was crying because they knocked it down, everything but the basement, the front porch and the attic, and I had a long talk with my dead mother.”
I feel tears well in my eyes, half fear, half sorrow, half wonder. The feeling is greater than the sum. “I’ve got something to read you guys.”
Smokin’ Tom stops the tape as I head back to my room and retrieve my journal. After I read them my dream, no one says a word. We grab our beers and head out for a breath of fresh air. No one’s in the mood for Chucky right now.
Sitting out on the wide deck of the Baton Rouge in heavy iron chairs, the star light is about the only illumination we have. O tells us about his mother.
“She was really my grandmother. She was the one that raised me, and when she died she left me the house. Now you ain’t the first to see her either. I have friends that won’t stay over no more. I’d put ‘em up in her old room and they’d come down for breakfast asking who was that crazy woman screaming outside their window all night. Always has that apron on. I remember the last thing she said to me. She looks at me and she says, ‘Candy,’ she always called me Candy, ‘Candy,’ she says, ‘I ain’t never gonna leave you. When you go, I go. My head may grow cold, but I ain’t never gonna leave you.’”
“Guess she hasn’t,” was about all I could say.
We all needed a couple more beers after that and some lighter talk to while away some hours before heading up to our beds. Morning is going to come up on us quick, and we have another run to do tomorrow. O puts his hand on my shoulder as he rises from his chair and says, “Well, I guess you been doin’ some travelin’. I’m goin’ up to bed now, and all I gotta say is this. You stay outta my dreams, and I’ll stay outta yours.” Then he gives me one of those smiles of his that’s brighter than the moon in a night sky and heads up to bed.
Smokin’ Tom brings me a last beer and takes one up to bed with him. Christine gives me a kiss on the cheek, then heads up herself.
Straddling the chair backwards, I look out over the bow of the Baton Rouge. A barge has passed, and the two boats, locked to land and each other, give a brief protest between water and shore then quite down. Those words dance in my head. A train whistle blows, far off, but it’s coming. The stars dance in mirrored reflection on the River, shimmering in the constant current. Those words dance in my head, “I ain’t never gonna leave you. When you go, I go. My head may grow cold, but I ain’t never gonna leave you.”

Find more of C.T. Thieme’s work at http://perpetualheathen.com/