November 2008
Something to Do With Sebastian by Douglas Lind
A Rainy Night of Density with a Reckless Neurotic by Richey Piiparinen
Comet Press open for submissions
Our print division, Comet Press, is currently accepting submissions for horror, suspense, and dark crime novels and novellas. Visit www.cometpress.us for details.
Available for order from Comet Press
DEADLINES: AN ANTHOLOGY OF HORROR AND DARK FICTION, will be released in November of 2008! Visit www.cometpress.us
Scarling
by M. Stafford
M. Stafford is a writer of macabre flash fiction, short and tasty slices of horror just the way you like them. His complete works can be found at thisdarkplace.blogspot.com
Everyday I would see her come out of her rundown tenement, huddled into herself and never looking about, her eyes always focused on the ground. She seemed to move through the crowds in an ethereal manner, not quite part of the throng, neither affecting it or being affected by it.
I'm not sure what made me notice her the first time, she being rather plain and doing her best to not stand out in the crowd. There was something about her though, an aura that radiated from her. An aura that spoke of pain and suffering, of brutality and hopelessness.
Day after day I would see her emerge from her building then hurry down the crowded streets and disappear around the corner, to where I do not know. Everyday I speculated, making up lives for her as she disappeared from sight. Sometimes I imagined her a secretary hurrying to her dominating and unappreciative boss, other times I envisioned her on her way to a soup kitchen to ladle out food to drunken and surely street people. But always when I saw her my mind would race away with her.
Finally, one cold October morning, I followed her.
I kept my distance, her slow and deliberate pace and refusal to so much as glance at the people around her made shadowing her a remarkably simple affair. She walked slowly through the streets of the downtown core, down garbage strewn avenues, past shops with boarded windows, until I was no longer sure of my bearings in a city I had lived my entire life.
As I looked about me, the atmosphere of the city had changed, growing more alien and threatening. The people milling about the street corners and shop fronts regarded me with hostile and challenging glares, and there comments were in a language I could not understand, almost English but a degenerate form that seemed to have decayed somehow.
I chanced a glance at a group of young men gathered in front of a boarded up cigarette shop and noticed the subtle deformity of features they all shared, as if they had all been victims of the same affliction.
Still I followed her, although with a growing sense of unease, until at last she stopped at an old stone building of solid Gothic architecture, a solemn and foreboding place. A place of punishment.
She hesitated only momentarily in front of the building, then moved forward through the large wooden doors.
I stood in front of the building hesitating, not sure what to do next. Could I follow her into the building without being noticed or would I be apprehended by men with strange, distorted faces? Surely I had not come this far to turn back now, so I lifted the collar of my overcoat and jammed my hands into my pockets, and with my head down I made my way towards the wooden doors.
The doors opened before me and I was met with a dark empty hallway, catching a glimpse of her turning a corner and disappearing from view.
I walked casually down the richly carpeted hallway, looking at walls lined with oil paintings of men and women of obvious wealth, dressed in fashions of many years past.
Upon rounding the corner I stopped short to see a group of men and women standing in an opulently appointed room, sipping drinks and smoking pipes and cigars. A hand fell on my shoulder and a balding heavy man in his fifties handed me a brandy.
"Show's about to begin" he said in a friendly manner, as if my appearance there had been nothing out of the ordinary.
Suddenly the lights dimmed and a curtain was drawn back revealing a stage on which stood a machine who's function I could not even guess at. It was almost comical looking, something out of a black and white horror movie. Large coils sparked as electricity traveled up and down their length and an electrical generator hummed loudly. Wires and electrical components surrounded a standing platform. Secured to this platform with heavy leather straps, naked and trembling, was the girl.
A man stepped forward and the group hushed at once. He was elderly but hard looking, dressed in a dark suit and looking at the group with even darker eyes. I have not often be given to flights of wild speculation, but I fancied this man was a source of malignancy, a focal point for evil.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, esteemed members of the society, the time is upon us once again. We will bathe in the essence of the good and gentle, and through suffering we will be cleansed and revitalized. Let the ceremonies begin".
Shouts of "Here here!" and "On with the show!" rose from the crowd as the hum of the generator increased significantly. The lights went out completely and all attention was on the spectacle of the stripped and helpless girl strapped to the machine on the stage.
A strange tension filled the air, giving one the feeling of dislocation, of being slightly outside the normal passage of time and events. People in the crowd shimmered and wavered as if the eerie light from the machine was playing tricks with my eyes.
Upon the stage the girl thrashed against here leather bonds, electricity coursing up and down her body, her face contorted in anguish. She was being electrocuted, but something else as well.
Part of her was fading.
My first impulse was to rush forward and release her, to pull her free of the leather straps and carry her away from this place. I took a step forward and found myself momentarily disoriented, thoughts of the girl falling from my mind to be replaced with decadent images of torture and pain and suffering. I began to moan softly, the experience being one of great pleasure. I looked again upon the figure of the girl who was now hunched forward against the straps, sobbing and convulsing but obviously too weak to fight the pain she was enduring. All the while I looked a feeling of warmth and vitality spread through me.
I felt good. I felt young and strong and powerful. And most of all, I felt nothing for the girl who hung unconscious from the platform, the generator now almost completely powered down.
The lights were raised and a loud cheer rose from the group, and there was much smiling and back patting and shaking of hands. I stood there momentarily lost, until the beefy man who had handed me the brandy walked towards me smiling.
"Hell of a show, wouldn't you say? Come back anytime, anytime at all. Welcome to the society."
Still feeling a strange euphoria, I made my way through the crowd glancing back only once at the stage. The girl had been released from her bonds and covered with a robe. Money was being shoved into her hand and she began to limp off the stage.
"Pity", I heard a woman's voice say "not much left in that one. Two or three more performances and she'll be nothing but cinders and ashes".
"More where she came from." another woman replied as they sipped there liqueur.
I should have been horrified, I should have been outraged, but I was neither. I was in a state of bliss. I felt clean and strong and young. I felt that what I wanted was mine for the taking. I had been invited to return to the society for the next performance and I was already anticipating it with just the slightest tinge of sadistic glee.
I wouldn't miss it for the world.
Scarling is copyrighted 2006 by M. Stafford and may not be reproduced under any circumstances without his permission.