In honor of my favorite time of year and season, I'm offering the following dark and scary free read,
. Next week I'll highlight a second story, entitled
. Before you start to read this, you might want to make sure your lights are on. Bwahahaha!
All Hell-ows Eve - A Halloween Horror Story
October 31st. All
Hallows Eve. The devil's Mardi
Gras. Within walls painted with the
scarlet broth of human life, in Devil King Nerul's court, buried deep within
the bowels of an unsuspecting Earth, All Hallows Eve is celebrated in a way
that brings to mind the human holiday, Christmas. Beneath the holiday tree in Nerul's court
however, the only gifts are corpses, wrapped in their own stink, and tied with
the roiling ribbons of their newly claimed maggot hosts.
Within these walls all manner of horror waits in rabid
anticipation of the culmination of the grand scheme, which was born as long as
2000 years ago, and comes to fruition on this night.
Halloween, 2012. In
the spirit world, the year of the devil.
As young, fresh-cheeked toddlers and adolescents choke down
their dinners in their eagerness to don their costumes and hit the streets,
their evil counterparts gather below with putrefying smiles and plan their
evening's delights, preening flesh-clogged claws and razor edged fangs in
preparation for the coming carnage.
The word had spread like wildfire through the spirit
world. It had passed with the tenacity
of long told tales and hero's songs. On
this Eve, the proclamation tells, a life could be regained for a life lost. For a brief time, ending exactly at midnight,
death's cold, filthy grasp could be traded for the warmth and joys of
life. The rules, proclaimed by Nerul,
were simple and grave: Kill a young
human brutally, with uncommon violence. And life
and beauty would be yours again. No
ordinary killing would do. Only through
extreme violence could the exchange be paid.
Brutality among the court's demons, devils, and gargoyles
was not a problem. They regularly paid
death its due through excessive carnage.
They only feared the good in man.
Goodness served as both a lure and a killing frost to their type of evil
purpose. It was as acid to their flesh,
unutterable despair to their spirits.
And in this unwelcome trait, the sweet, untainted child was of
particular danger to them.
With this knowledge in their tortured thoughts, Nerul's
monsters gathered with a mixture of fear and gleeful anticipation. For the sweet syrup of human goodness was a
wine they rarely dared to drink. These
dwellers of subterranean dark generally set their sights on those of human form
whose souls had long ago been bartered away for temporary riches, whether
monetary or of the flesh. Those humans
who took the downward spiral in their humane growth, and passed beyond the hope
of ever finding their way back, were ready and tender targets for Nerul and his
kind. This type of victim the hosts of
human nightmares understood and readily hunted.
In contrast, their prey on this most important of nights
would be heavily protected from the monsters' lures. The good were constantly guarded and watched
by their guardian Angels. And once they
had been separated from their guardians, their sweet natures would still burn
as acid until it was tainted by evil. It
was this task that would prove the most difficult. Luring the good into evil so that they could
be subdued.
As dusk gathered like a mask across the land, children and
monsters alike left the cover of their dwellings and walked out, gleefully
anticipating the coming Halloween delights.
Children greeted each other with high-pitched, Angelic voices and
taunted their elders for homemade tidbits and sweet-tasting treats while
tripping happily over their ghostly sheets and bewitching finery. Among them, short, jolly monsters with
bloodied, latex faces and glowing, green plastic eyes danced from house to
house, swinging bags that bulged with gastronomic delights and sang out a
childish challenge to all that they passed.
None of them dreamed that behind the next tree, beyond the next hill,
the stuff of true nightmares awaited them, watching for the opportunity to
drink greedily of their potent human wine.
Hovering watchfully above these sweet human targets, the
Angels of God trained careful, probing eyes on their charges and cast their web
of goodness around the unsuspecting children like a protective wall. While Nerul's monsters could boast freely to
each other of their indifference to the Angels' powers, nary a one thought to
test those powers when they were gathered en masse as they were this special
night. After a human hour's passage of
time, the monsters, disgusted and repelled by the wall of goodness they'd
encountered on those lively streets, retreated to council beneath a fat and
taunting moon. Deep in a cold foreboding
wood, where displaced spirits danced their fearful dance across the
wind-stripped limbs of winter's trees, the monsters bent their terrible heads
and began to plan.
They snatched sleeping squirrels from their peaceful nests
and bit off their tiny heads thoughtfully as they discussed their attack. Encircling a fire that shot upward from a
hole in the earth at the center of their evil council, they argued and pierced
each other with gore-touched claws and blood-slimed teeth. Then, at last, heads nodding in agreement,
they doused the fires of Hell in their midst and moved out into the night, to
make real the nightmare they'd hatched in that dark, cold wood.
As the monsters settled into place in the shadows just
beyond the light, calling to their king to bend his special powers to
fulfillment of their plan, a lone child emerged from a darkened house,
clutching her mother's work-roughened hand.
The child was very small, with bright blue eyes and hair that was a
scarlet spark under the efficient, white glow of the streetlights. Her name was Astra and, although she was very
young and very small, she moved with the purpose of the very old and her eyes
were filled with an understanding that surpassed time. She was followed by a single, bright Angel
whose name was Myra, and whose scowling countenance foretold the night to come.
As the child moved through the unsuspecting revelers, she
looked often to her Angel and smiled a bright, childish smile as if to offset
the celestial creature's stern countenance.
Angel Myra's response was to scowl more thoroughly and scan the area
around them with increased intensity.
The ghoulish hunters could not avoid being drawn to Astra. Their red-rimmed eyes followed her tiny form
down the streets with a mixture of hunger and dread. For her part, Astra gathered her treats
rather carelessly, and without apparent joy, as if she were simply playing a
part that could not be avoided. Her
weary mother trudged along beside her, yawning widely and offering sleepy
smiles to the treat givers they approached.
One ravenous demon, drawn in by the child's sweetness and
apparent fragility, stepped from behind a large oak and stared down at Astra
through glowing, dead eyes. As Myra
reared back to strike, Astra held up a small hand and frowned. With a pucker of her soft, pink lips, little
Astra blew a tender kiss at the monster and then laughed childishly as he
scurried away with a roar. The child's
mother, not at all convinced of the harmlessness of the thing they'd just
encountered, jerked her young charge into the brighter lights and, looking over
her shoulder with a shiver, pulled Astra along to the next house.
Myra followed, scolding the child softly and with great
intensity. Astra accepted her scolding
with a soft smile. "It was just a
costume, Myra." She said in soft
tones when her mother was distracted.
With this Myra scowled all the more deeply and said, "You know
better, Astra."
The child's brave defiance when confronted by a living,
breathing nightmare spurred the monsters on.
With renewed vigor they called upon Nerul to help them set their plan
into motion. As the revelers squeezed
the last of the bounty from the dying night, as lights and candles winked off
all around them, and footsteps turned wearily toward home, Nerul raised his
awful countenance and drove his massive powers into the rock and dirt that
formed the roof of his court in the bowels of the Earth. In response, the very street the children
walked upon began to tremble and crack.
With a thunderous roar, the street ripped apart and flew skyward to
expose the fires of Hell beneath.
With screams of surprise and then terror, children scattered
or were whisked away by their guardians.
The children who had been standing in the place where the jagged edges
of the fiery pit emerged, teetered and screamed and fell into it, landing in
the hard, leathery arms of their worst nightmares. While Hell's flames lapped hungrily at soft,
cringing flesh, the monsters bent their terrible heads to whisper words of
temptation into the tender, captive ears.
Many of the small victims succumbed to evil's promise and gave way. These the monsters dove upon and
devoured. A few, good, brave children
shook their tiny heads in denial of Hades' pledge. These the monsters rejected with a roar of
terror and disgust, flinging them from the fires of Hell, where they were
gathered up, once again, by their frantic guardian Angels.
By the hundreds, the guardian Angels left their charges and
flew into the pit to save the howling children.
And as they fought the demons of Hell, the Angels called to the heavens
in crystalline tones of supplication.
Demons, devils, and gargoyles; taking advantage of the children’s newly
unguarded state; emerged from the shadows and carried them off, whispering
terrible words of temptation and threat into their helpless ears.
As the smoke of burning flesh filled the air, and the sound
of childish screaming cut into the calm quiet of those human streets, doors and
windows flew open and people ran into the streets to watch in horror while
their world exploded around them.
In the midst of it all, Astra stood quiet and calm, arms
outstretched, and called selected children around her. At her calm insistence, even the most terror
stricken of the chosen few moved to stand quietly at her side. The demons, seeing in the small child a power
greater than theirs, made no attempt to breach her circle of control and the
thirteen, specially-picked children she'd called to her side were spared.
Moments later, the bells of St. Michael's church on the
corner began to strike the hours of Midnight.
As each hour chimed away, the edges of the earth began to knit
themselves back together and the smoke began to clear. The screams died away to muted cries and then
silence, and the world began to right itself.
As the midnight hour was reached, the revelers seemed to shake
themselves off and take a collective, deep breath. They blinked and moved to retrieve lost bags
filled with sweet delights, resuming their measured steps toward home. Neighbors shook their heads and returned to
their homes, wondering what trick of fate had brought them out of their warm
beds and into the cold, quiet night.
Young Astra looked up and smiled sadly as Myra settled once
again at her back. Quietly they made
their way home, dragging Astra's exhausted mother behind. Once there, young Astra made an excuse to her
mother and stood outside for just a moment longer, glancing at her Angel with a
sad frown.
"How
many do you think, my Angel?"
Myra
shrugged and her habitual scowl deepened.
"At least a dozen I fear."
"How
many did you save?"
The Angel's
soft lips took a downward turn, "Not nearly enough."
Astra
nodded and touched her Angel's pale, translucent hand. "Will their parents know?"
Myra shook
her golden head and sighed. "They
see what they want to see, Astra."
Astra lowered her head and turned to enter her house. One by one the lights of the street winked
off and keys turned in locks. Inside the
homes, sleepy children kissed their parents' cheeks and trudged wearily off to
bed. If some of these small, sleepy
faces seemed somehow different...somehow colder...somehow sharper...their
parents didn't notice.
The day was spent.
The air outside was clear and cold.
The moon lay fat and smiling in the sky.
It was time to put aside the cares of the day. Small forms settled down to sleep in
down-covered beds, with softly glowing nightlights at their heads to protect
them from the monsters under the bed.
But many of the monsters had moved from under the bed to rest upon
it. In many beds innocence no longer
slept. In these beds, eyes that had been
bright with childish delight that morning, now glowed with an unearthly fever,
demonic with the pleasure of humanity gained.
Until at last, two by two, these cold eyes closed in restless sleep, to
foster dreams of celebrations to come.
October 31st, 2013. In the spirit world, the year of the demon.
Happy Halloween Everybody!
