Keep Smiling

I've been having some extremely horrifying nightmares for the past month, and it's always this man killing and torturing innocent people in front of me, coaxing me to join him, or offering me slabs of mangled flesh to eat. Last night was the worst one so far, when he killed and chopped up an elderly, helpless woman.

He had disguised himself to look like a normal, average man, taking this poor woman in out of the night. I can't remember why she was wandering by herself, she didn't look homeless, but instead like a simple grandmother that had lost her way. He invited her to sleep in his bed with him, insisting it was large enough that their bodies wouldn't touch, and somehow he convinced her it was a practical, sensible idea. When they laid down to sleep, I curled up on the small cot at the foot of the man's bed, and tried to sleep, tried not to think about what was going to happen to the woman, what he was going to make me watch him do. When the woman woke, I woke, noticing that the man was nowhere around, and I knew she was headed for death when she slipped out of bed and grabbed a hooked prod from the fireplace. She knew something was wrong, that she was in a terrible place, that it was a mistake to've slept here. I followed her but couldn't speak, couldn't reach out and grab her to tell her I could help, that we could find a way out together. I couldn't do a thing but follow her, and then he appeared around the corner, just before the woman could reach the front door.There was that sudden frozen stillness of panic, that sinking feeling, ice in my veins as she swung the prod and he caught her arm with a cleaver.

Her screams were terrible as he twisted her arm around and shattered the bones apart while the cleaver slid through to the other side, mangling the limb completely. It didn't matter how much she struggled or how loud she screamed, he kept hacking perfect chunks out of her body, laughing and yelling joyously as he did. I could feel her blood spatter across my body, and I couldn't move, couldn't blink, had to watch him cleave her skull down the middle and chop from the side, making an anatomy grid out of her for a brief moment so I could see her brain, her sinuses, the tunnel of her throat, and so on. She gurgled and squealed, thrashing uselessly as he sliced her down to nothing, and he was smiling, throwing a hunk of greasy, bloody fat he'd cleaved off of her at me because he knew I couldn't move, couldn't dodge and avoid it, and I felt the slab hit me in the face and slide across it, falling to my shoulder and then down my front and finally slapping the floor. He told me to eat, holding a slice of her liver out to me. I've fought him in all of my nightmares, refused his coaxing, stayed strong, but now...now, I ate. I bit down into the slippery chunk of organ and swallowed. I woke up, fighting off the urge to vomit and cry.

He smells like a corpse dripping with formaldehyde, like sour infection. His voice is a whispery rasp with a faint German accent. He makes wet hissing sounds again and again, like he's keeping saliva at bay from leaking through his teeth. He can disguise himself to look completely normal, but when he's killing, when he speaks to me, he's this, only more horrible because my abilities fall short of really showing just how awful he is. He always wears white.

It was suggested that I should draw him, that maybe pulling him into the waking world would stop the nightmares. I guess I'll have to wait and see.



This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License.

Miss Cataleu

This is an older poem I found in my files. Many apologies for the lack of updates. Life's been stressful.

Miss Cataleu is waiting for you
To brush her straw-like hair
Bristles drawn and tangles on
The worst a girl can bear

Miss Cataleu is waiting for you
To wash her leather face
Wrinkles deep as eyelids creep
With maggots set in place

Miss Cataleu is waiting for you
To paint her ashen lips
Sweet as blood and honeydew
While tongue betwixt them slips

Miss Cataleu is waiting for you
To take her to the ball
Dress her in her finest silks
While spiders weave and crawl

Miss Cataleu is waiting for you
To tuck her into bed
But if you kiss her ruby lips
She'll gaurantee you're dead

Miss Cataleu is waiting for you
To rouse her from her sleep
But what is a girl ever to do
When insects eat too deep


Miss Cataleu by Ashton J. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

The Dark Thing

This is my most recent work, which I can't say is my best, but was meant to be an experiment in disjointed first person. Constructive critiques are certainly welcome. The illustration at the end was done specifically for this story by the talented James G.

I don't know how long I've been here in the dark. It feels like I've always been here. I can feel cold walls of a corner against my back, hard and uncomfortable, and the floor is like cement. How long have I been here? My hand lifts to touch my body, to make sure I'm all there, that I have not, in fact, become a part of the darkness. I feel my face; there's a nose, a pair of lips, a chin and jaw, small curves of ears on either side. I feel my neck, grimey and cold like the walls, and further down to my chest I realize I must be wearing a shirt. Down again, and I can feel ripped fabric of jeans on my legs. My feet are caked with what feels like old, dried mud. I'm all here.

I look upward and see no ceiling, only blackness. I look in front of me, to each side, and it's only blackness all around me. I can't even see my hand move inches in front of my eyes. It's so cold. I dare to stand up in the darkness, keeping my back in the corner to brace myself. There might be a hole in the middle of the room. My mind spins with what might be in the room, or not in it, as I splay out my arms and rest them against the wall. I make quiet, shuffling steps in the dark, slow and steady, but I'm breathing hard. I must not have moved for a long time, my muscles feel atrophied, my legs shiver under my weight. How long have I been here, I keep asking, continuing to shuffle until I find another corner. I keep going. Another corner, then another, and I'm finally back where I started. Walls all around me, and not a single door.

I sit down again to breathe. How did I get here? What did I do to make someone put me in such a horrible place? And how did they get me in? Perhaps a door in the cieling that I can't see or reach. Is there anyone else here? I hold my breath and listen, and I can hear the faint buzzing of silence in my ears, then a sudden, wet, choking cough, and the dull and steady sound of a wheezing breath.

"Hello?"

My voice dies the second I close my mouth, crushed and snuffed out in the darkness. The thing in the room chokes again, breathes, but everything else is quiet.

"Can you hear me?"

I hear a moist thud like an arm or leg suddenly dropping on the floor, and the thing chokes again, but as it exhales, the wetness in its throat gurgles, and I hear the light trickle of something hitting the ground.

"Please..."

I hear another thud, and what sounds like the slick pop of joints, and the thing breathes louder, chokes again, and suddenly I hear it flopping violently against the floor. My heart races in my chest and I open my eyes wider to try and see through the thick blanket of dark, and then it starts to scream.

I push my palms against my ears and huddle tight into the corner. The screams are wet and shrieking, and I can hear its muffled, flopping seizuring against the ground. It stops abruptly, and when I'm sure the screams have died, I lower my hands and stare across the darkness.

It's breathing again, chokes, and spits up something thick and liquid that dribbles noisily onto the floor. I swallow hard and pull my legs in against my chest, holding onto my ankles to drag my feet as close as possible. A stench begins to fill the room, makes me gag, and I clasp my hands over my nose and mouth, trying to keep the stink out of my nostrils. The thing starts to flop again; I can hear it getting closer, shuffling itself violently across the floor, bringing its acrid stench with it.

"No! Stay back! Don't touch me!"

I yell at the thing behind the cup of my hands and I struggle further back in the corner, and it stops and goes silent again. Whatever it is, I can't let it touch me. My mind swirls with what it could be, but whatever it is I'm certain it isn't human, at least not anymore. My hands shake even though I can't see them, trembling against my face as I peer wide-eyed in the dark. How long has it been down here with me?

After a while even its breathing stops, and the silence closes in again. I'm afraid to make a sound, keeping my hands over my mouth to muffle my breath. If it wakes up again, it might not stop, and if I don't find a way out of here it will touch me, it will infect me, I'll become what it is.

The stink dies away after a while, leaving no evidence that the thing is still in this room with me. I don't know how close it is as the hours go by, I start to forget. How long have I been here? I slowly dare to stand up again and I start to shuffle the length of the walls. One, two, three, four corners and no doors. I reach upward this time, and the tips of my fingers brush the cold, hard ceiling. But if there's a door, I must venture toward the center of the room, and that is where the thing dwells. If it touches me, I will become what it is. Quietly, a sink back down in the corner furthest away from the one where I used to sit.

My feet scrape the ground and I freeze. A loud, sickening pop and thud, a gurgling breath, a choke, a sputter, and the thing is suddenly flopping again. I can hear it coming closer as it starts to scream. If I don't move, it will touch me, but all I can see is darkness. I get to my feet and shuffle quickly to the side. With a horrible, crackling twist, I hear it turn to follow me, its inhuman screams turning to wet hisses as something slick slaps against the ground, and its seizuring body drags closer to me. I move to the other side, and again it twists, shivers, cracks, and a series of loud, wet thuds come chasing faster after me.

I run. There's nowhere to run to, but I run. I don't know how far away the next wall is, there is only blackness, but the thing is after me now, and if I stop it will catch me, it will touch me, and I will be what it is.

Grimey, oily fingers wrap around my foot and I crash to the floor. I scream as the flopping mass of wet flesh descends on me, bringing with it the stench from before. I can feel the oily wetness seeping into my clothes, dissolving them as something slick brushes the side of my face. I feel a toothless mouth suddenly close over my face and I shriek, I thrash under the mass, while popping bones and exposed flesh slaps all around me. I struggle against the stretching mouth and the wet limbs that close over my body, overwhelmed by the pungent scent of decay. The lips are pursed around my neck now as the throat undulates to drag me further in, closer to its rotted core, and slowly it begins to twist my legs and arms. It buckles me into a smaller mass as I shriek with an agony I've never known, making me easier to swallow and consume as the molten tar of its stomach dissolves my naked flesh.

Silence again. How long have I been here? I hear quiet, steady breathing in a corner of the room. It speaks to me.

"Hello?"

I open my mouth to answer, but I choke and one of my arms falls with a thud to the ground.

"Can you hear me?"

It is my old body, it must be. I must touch it to become myself again. I will my body into motion under the slick heaviness that coats me, and I scream in pain. The only way to get closer is if I thrash my body. I have to reach it, I have to touch it, and I will be myself again. But everything goes silent, I forget where the thing is, so I must wait until it speaks again.

How long have I been here?





The Dark Thing by Ashton J. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

The Scarecrow

The breath of a thousand winged demons breathed on that field, the stark shadows of bending blades swaying in a nighttime wind that gave off nothing but threat and unease. A scarecrow, its face contorted into a ruptured scream, bits of hay spilling from the broken stitching, it's eyes stretched, limp, and hollowed by the wind, stood its ground at the center to ward away the crows. But in this task it had rebelled in a silent reverie, and fallen in love. The white breasted crackler, perched everlastingly on that deformed shoulder, crowed no more than it moved, its pitch feathers ruffling like black breaking waves where foam was replaced by a cold aqua sheen. Her eyes were burned blacker than her body, pits of coal that glittered in the dying sunlight like jewels, or diamonds in the rough.
"What shall we do tonight?" asked the scarecrow of the fowl, to which she replied with a cackling shriek, a witch in her throat, a frog in her belly, spewing her discontent at the unmoving mouth and the voice that leaked like tar from within it, bits of faded yellow flittering like saliva in the wind, broken and limp.

"Won't you sing to me, beloved?" A gust caught his torn lids and arched them high, the holes of his eyes reverberating some empty sadness, for his companion would not sing a tune, nor flutter a feather at his request, and merely perched, unmoving, cocking her head in small, nervous jerks, those shining orbs holding flickers of light still yet as the sun bid adieu to the day.

"Won't you sing to me?" His voice was as hollow as his eyes, as empty as the dried up well that sat yards away near an abandoned farm. It was haunted, or so it was said, by the ghosts of a family brutally murdered, all the livestock stolen, nothing left but bloodstains on creaky wooden floors. The scarecrow knew; he'd seen it all, no matter how bereft of his eyes. A black and white monochrome play danced before him, the luxury of color unafforded to him by the rough, calloused hands that had given him life and purpose, and crucified him to his post. Hands that sacrificed ragged clothing had strewn him together, his body a mishapen mess of burlap and stitch, mangled by years of neglect. He'd seen it all.

"Just a note, my beautiful wife..A single trill would suffice." Still, she gave him no answer, only staring at the deflated lump of his head, blinking quickly and opening her mouth to offer a silent scream. It pierced him further than any sound could, drove down into the hay stuffing of his heart, snapping the twigs that made up his form. His burlap flesh quivered in a gust, the wheat sending up a chorus of yells as it swayed like the sea, rippling and breaking, a demanding crowd that served the scarecrow's prison, a bubbling mass of lithe, skeletal bodies. They reached for him, battered his legs with their tall, pointed heads, flailing their arms in the wind. His beloved, the crow, snapped shut her beak, and all was peaceful again.

Twilight shrouded the dusky sky, pinprick wounds of light shimmering like a million ashen eyes, countless courtesans that seduced their tattered friend and bade him look above and drink his content of their marvelous beauty. "Look at us, look at us" they said, and he strained to obey and please his many mistresses. But the stick of his neck, alas, lay broken and slumped to the side and eternally down, to look upon the angry heads of wheat.

"Please, won't you sing to me, oh cruel but lovely wife? Can you not set me at ease for but a moment? I do so ache to look at you. Flutter by my face, let me feel the softness of your wings." She croaked out a caw that disatisfied, and discarded the urge of his plea, tilting her head and leaning to pluck at the lid of his eye that flitted and twitched near her face. He sent up a cry of betrayal, another stitch breaking to lay open his lips and vomit the moist straw from his head, leaving it formless and ugly even to the crow's eye. She released him and flared out her stiff, onyx wings, the tips of them brushing his weather-scarred face, the post that supported him groaning and pleased. And had he owned tears to shed for that touch, to feel the sweet tickle of her wings rather than claws that pinched and gripped him roughly, that bore no kindness in the cold, he'd have wept under the cloak of the night.

"My darling, my goddess...now will you sing for me, that you've wounded, now that you've pricked? Will you stray from your silent apathy?" To which she gave nothing but the hiss of the wheat as the wind carried echoes of ghosts through their midst.

A dirge of drums came on quick, quiet feet, tucked beneath bodies of ash. A thousand pairs of unpolished coal, glowing with embers of cruel, burning heat, an army of blotches of ink. The scarecrow could see them through his torn cornered eye, an omen of death in those glittering orbs, and he cried out to the beauties who beckoned in the sky.

"Fend them from me, oh beautiful dears, oh shimmering darlings I have never seen! Save me, your companion, this ugly pitiful thing, that has not heard his sweet wife's song!" And those tiny wounds who loved him so, and tried to break free of their black velvet sheet, could not but writhe as they witnessed the brigade, the slaughter that unfolded before them.

A chorus of caws like a funeral choir swelled in waves of tone, a cacaphony of noise, of bitter sensation to the formless ears of the scarecrow. A scream, a flutter, and the trill of a song came spilling out of his companion's mouth as beaks came crashing into her breast, talons strumming the chords of her life, to send up a crimson shower of song. Ecstacy to his ears were those sweet screaming cries, an orgasm of life in his hollow, straw-laiden soul.

"My love, you relent with gorgeous submission! Pray, give me more of your song!" Warmth spattered red on his shoulder and face, a shivering delight in his heart, imagining her wings enfolding his head, until he saw it all, and reckognized the broken thing that laid at his feet. Her wings lay in ruin, folded and bent, her feathers of beauty and youth cast away to reveal one tattered finger of bone. The coal of her eyes shimmered none for his sight, as dull and lifeless as his own, the body contorted and still except for a ruffle, a stir from the breath of the wind, and the scarecrow's eyes assigned beauty to her form.

"Truly, you are Venus...oh sweet muse, sing again." But her mouth gaped wide and spilled out only her tongue, never to trill again.

His lopsided head and downcast eyes beheld her forever thereafter, night after night near the old haunted farm, while he pleaded and begged her to sing. And into eternity her cries rang in his ears, until he contented himself with their memory, and yearly the army of spirits returned while he sputtered his praise with spittle of straw, and wept as his paramour bleached white from the sun, and the soil crept over to make her a grave. His torn mouth screamed forever, alone, and the children of generations came to say "The ghosts of the farmhouse can be heard in the weeping scarecrow's song."


The Scarecrow by Ashton J. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Elijah

To begin, I will say that the next few stories I submit are a few years old, and I hope to create more like them with more frequency in the coming months. I hope any readers who stumble onto these stories will enjoy them, or have valuable advice to offer for future undertakings.



It was over in seconds, in a flash of gaping maws and blood-stained teeth, of snarling howls and moans...All over. In the wake of the attack there was a line of scattered bodies, one after the other mauled, slashed, and eaten alive, a blotched spatter of corpses like a drop of blood fallen from heaven. Truly, God must have been wounded, too. The groaning mass of attackers stumbled on in pursuit of their prey, of the imminent carnage to gorge themselves upon. A twitch, a flicker of life, or something like it, came into the broken fingers of one man. His eyes were clear but dull, lacking that glimmer of vitality, that depth and sheen, replaced by a murkiness like swamp water, thick and shallow. His chest didn't heave for breath, even as he rolled slowly to his side and clumsily pushed himself up to sit. Every memory he'd had in life was gone, leaving only the vague idea that he had actually been alive at all. He knew he'd known a woman, that she was important somehow, and that he'd died for her. He'd died...

His brow furrowed for a long moment in a struggling sort of confusion, trying to grasp the memories that were slipping quickly away from him, managing to keep hold only of her face; a pristine, angelic, glowing kind of portrait. It used to make him weak in the knees. He looked around himself at the bloody aftermath, hobbling to his feet and swaying, losing balance as he went colliding against the asphalt again; a snap, and his arm was broken. A soft moan shuddered from his throat, blinking dully as he sat up once more. Try again, would have been his conscious thought if he remembered any words to think in. Now, he only imagined himself getting back up, and he followed the example of his mind, his instincts reaching out to take his subconscious hand and guide him back to his feet. He swayed again, tottered, and caught himself in a large step, a vague sense of accomplishment overtaking him as he swung his other leg forward, stepping stiffly one foot after the other, walking away from the pack of undead that plundered their way through the streets, progressing ever-committedly toward the heart of the city. He had no concept of them or of himself, the kind that had wounded him less than the others, enough to cast off mortality, but too little to rob away his soul.

A singular urge, coupled with the memory of the woman, was the only thing that drove him on, a hunger in the pit of his stomach and the unpumping caverns of his heart. He had to find her or all was lost, all the urgency of the world around him forgotten save for that goal, that last obligation he'd had in life. And the need within him, the taste of his own thickening blood, brought another state of dedication, another fumbling, vague-minded conclusion that he must find food. He lurched with every step, any feeling he'd had in the broken arm gone, letting it flail limply at his side from the impact of his steps, the bone sliding sickly in and out of his flesh, a peeking flash of white with the stain of red and dark brown marrow readily drying in the air. He felt no pain, only a dull sense that his arm wouldn't work, wouldn't respond to the impulses still sparking in his brain. He weaved almost drunkenly between bodies that lay themselves open to be baked by the sun, dogs and birds jolting to rob them of sweetbreads and blood. A grand feast presented itself to the unharmed scallion of nature, and the bugs would join in soon. Flies would come to mate above the rank carrion, and spread their tiny, wriggling seeds of life within the ironic hosts, their first tasting sensations to be slaked at the cost of the dead. The man knew nothing of this, however, came to no thought or care as to what befell the corpses he'd known and now knew not.

He walked for miles silently, no howling or moaning as his festering brothers and sisters had, only the drag-thump-drag-thump of his feet against the ground and the quiet twitter of birds. He kept her face, the angel's, in his mind, his lifeless eyes staring blankly ahead, going toward some unknown destination as he kept hold of instinct's hand, letting it lead him where habit would go. He trusted his instincts completely, more than a lover, than a child did its father. It was his sole companion now, a silent, shapeless thing that was, as far as he knew, the closest thing to God. But whether he knew or not made no difference, he would not search the deteriorating wrinkles of his mind. Must find her, must eat..must find her, the simplistic, juvenile thoughts turned to images in his dying mind. Then, a sound, a shuffling of feet made him stop and blearily focus toward something at his side. It was small and moving in a peculiar way, whimpering and pulling its clothes. A little girl in miniature jeans and a flowery t-shirt paced circles around her dead mother, her feet hissing through the grass as old tears were beginning to dry on streaked cushions beneath her eyes. She looked up and gasped, a painful expression of horror, and before he knew it he was on her, tearing her, and listening to her scream. His first meal of warm, tangy meat, the blood giving it salt, a metallic boquette in his nostrils, only seemed to deepen the pain in his gut, the relief lasting mere seconds as he tore the small body and ate what he found. He was diligent yet clumsy as he hollowed her out, his stomach too full to take more, the task of it bringing on the chill of nightfall.

He could barely feel it, barely sense the prick of night when the warmth of day surrendered, his skin rising in bumps that perplexed him, lifting the one up he could still control to inspect the involuntary reaction. All night he sat and almost slept near the bodies of woman and child, no regret to pain him, nor guilt to drive him as it might have when he was alive. She was not a girl in his listless eyes, measuring her worth more like something of a rabbit, meant to be slaughtered, meant to be eaten, meant to be enjoyed. And how the rabbit had screamed...

Day again, and his stiff muscles slowly stretched as he hobbled back to his feet under the warmth of the sun. His glassy eyes rolled up in their drooping lids, tilting his head back as his mouth fell open, gaping at the sky as he shuffled down the street with that drag-thump walk, his head lolling from side to side inebriatedly. He wasn't sure where he was going, or why any of the homes he passed looked familiar, a small, empty neighborhood strewn with the decorations of decay. Must find her...must find her, again and again he thought of her face, of those black, shimmering eyes, and rich auburn mixed with brunette that formed a mane of locks that poured over her shoulders in tumultous waves, her skin pale and fair, as it should be, as it always was since the day he met her.

He pressed on, stumbling, the addled child who could not entirely control his limbs, tottering against the grip of gravity until he became garishly marred by the street. Black, oozing blood stained his dead, ashen skin, riddled with deep purple wounds that spread like clouds in the sunset sky, plumes of erupting color. That hunger came back into the pit of his stomach, commanding him to eat, to find some form of life to feed upon. The neighborhood street overflowed with the dead, as though they'd leaked up from the pores of the very earth like the sweat of decay, beads of crippled bodies. None of his own were here, all gone, all swarming to the buzzing light of the city, a thousand flies to the beauty of neon light.

It was all too familiar, too close in the lost memory of his clean slated brain, the remnants peeking through the whitewash paint that reminded him he was dead, and that he'd been alive. He knew it in the way an animal knows what it is, knows its own kind and picks out the differences between companions and prey. No word was assigned, no real image of himself in his mind, only that instinctual awareness that still kept him human. He caught movement in the corner of his yellowing eye, soles scraping against the loose, sun-melted asphalt as he made a turn. Something alive fled back into its home, slammed the door shut on him, and left him standing alone and awkward. He might not find another living being for miles, and with that knowledge he willed his legs to move, the sick crackle of a broken ankle grinding on torn tendon, forcing his foot to give out. He faltered and fell, cushioned by blood-stained grass, and righted himself again, groaning softly as he reached for the door and scraped gray, grimey fingers against the grain of wood. The barricade foiled his pawing attempts at entry, his mouth drawn in a tight, frustrated frown as he tried to work loose this puzzle of a thing that kept him from his food.

His hand hit smooth metal, cold despite the glare of the sun, and he looked upon the shimmering thing with perplexion. He touched it again and blinked as it moved, and a crack of paint flecked off of his mind as he remembered the trick to the door. Broken fingers curled mishapenly, gripping the barricade knob, and with an old, weathered creak it gave way to the motion of his wrist. Pride flooded him from learning this new, yet familiar thing, a sensation made short as the door was flung wide from within. A flurry of movement, and he had no time to think, to react, or to move. Down a cold, metal barrel were two flickering eyes, glittering onyx set in alabaster stone surrounded by waves of darkness. A crack of the rusty trigger scraped into his ears, and the reverberating sound of a jet's aftershock plummeted into his head, sending an echo through the chasms of his mind.

His eyes went wide as he recognized the face that stared shakily back into his bleary, dead orbs, and reached with distorted fingers to touch the pale skin, but shuddered instead, his legs crumpling uselessly beneath him. He began to utter the name that came screaming louder than the gun in his ears, and echoed far more powerfully, betrayed by his failing voice that uttered only a moan. A haze of white flooded his eyes, just realizing he was in the grass again, and as the feeling in his body was all but gone, he managed a clumsy smile.

There in the doorway, his angel stood, the last person left in what had become his small world. Her hands quivered as she lowered the gun, the dull thunk of metal, like the sound he had made, crashing into the grass as she stared with horror upon the mangled man that had once been a husband, and she his wife. The smiling undead gazed back with quiet, happy eyes.

Found her...found her...


Elijah by Ashton J. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.