Year's Best Hardcore Horror Volume 3

by Cheryl Mullenax

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  AUTHOR’S STORY NOTE

  “Break” started with a call for submissions to an Alcatraz themed anthology (Hard Sentences) that was to be published by Broken River Books, with David James Keaton putting it together. I really wanted to be part of it. I tossed around a few ideas but nothing panned out. That is, until DJK posted a list of potential concepts in the guidelines. One of them was, “a story inspired by that Russian guy in the news who squeezed through the food slot in his prison cell.” I was like, huh? And it didn’t take long to find the video online. I stared at the screen, grinning, thinking, hell yes; we just may have something here. Things were getting visceral. I watched this lanky naked dude wriggle through the food slot of his cell like some kind of oversized slippery fish. Taking his time, bending, pushing, pulling, wriggling. He finally disgorged himself and plopped down to the floor on the other side of the bars, pulled on his clothes and nonchalantly walked out of view. Now that was very cool, but how could we ramp it up? What if there was no food slot? Could someone squeeze through the bars? What would stop you? Bones. If we had no skeleton, it’d be so damn easy. I started thinking about diseases, anomalies, syndromes, anything that could help. And for me, the medicine has to make sense. It can be fantastical but it has to be based in some real medicine or disease. And the anatomy has to be perfect. I had some diseases in mind, did more research, settled on osteogenesis imperfecta, and knew I had something workable. I never imagined it’d be in a year’s best anthology. Mucho thanks to DJK, Randy and Cheryl.

  BERNADETTE

  R. PEREZ DE PEREDA

  From Shadows And Teeth

  Editor: R. Perez Pereda

  Darkwater Syndicate, Inc.

  It is far better to have loved and have lost, than to have recovered and regretted the cost.

  A letter from the Monastery of San Millán in La Rioja, Kingdom of Castile, dated the seventeenth of August, in the Year of our Lord 1224.

  My dearest brother, it is my sincerest hope this missive finds you well and healthy, though none would fault me for presuming the worst. As I write this, it has been four years since you set sail in the employ of those damnable Venetian merchants. Word has since reached home that your ship foundered near Ephesus. Would that by the grace of our Lord Jesus you return home safely. By His grace, too, I pray you find it in yourself to forgive me, as I have perpetrated a terrible offense against God and you.

  I fear for your daughter, Bernadette.

  Truth be told, I loved her—I loved her like the daughter I never had. If I had not found my calling in the service of the most high, I so would have wanted to raise such a demure young lady as your daughter was.

  I loved her. That is why I have decided she must die.

  Do not judge me a murderer, for a killer I most certainly am not. Bernadette is not dead. More precisely: your daughter Bernadette will not stay dead.

  No doubt you must think me mad. With all that I have witnessed since your departure, I can only wonder how I am yet to lose my faculties. But no—I am of sound mind; I am sane and not a murderer, as the account in this letter shall demonstrate. By means of this letter also, I entrust to you the two distasteful yet obligatory labors that must be undertaken once you have read these pages.

  First, I pray you have mercy on me. I have not long to live, and the thought of dying with this guilt weighs heavily on my soul. I leave this, rightfully, within your discretion, and I will understand and accept your decision regardless of your choice.

  Second, Bernadette must be killed. There simply is no other way. Now that the Holy Father has decreed I live out my days in a Castilian monastery, I am too far removed to make it happen myself. She must be killed, if not for the sake of her immortal soul, then for the safety of countless others residing in Aragon.

  Your daughter is a monster. She is beyond sense, beyond reason. Do not be fooled by her appearance should you cross her. While she is the very image of your daughter, it is merely a ruse. The person behind her eyes—if indeed it is a person—is not the child you reared and loved. Take note of her gaunt features, her drawn face, her pallid skin, and the way her eyes dart about like an animal that hunts knowing it too is hunted.

  I realize now I owe you more than an apology. I owe you an explanation, and it is well and good that you should have one. My hope is that it shall serve you in your task.

  We shall start at the beginning.

  ___

  When your ship did not arrive from Ephesus, your wife immediately suspected the worst. Clara donned the mourning veil, and yet a part of her kept hope that you would return. She took it upon herself to visit the docks every morning and inquire about you. Each time she received the same response, and it seemed to kill her a little more each day.

  With you missing, the family’s savings dwindled to nothing. Your wife was a daily visitor at my parish. I was still residing in Barcelona at the time, and whenever she came to my church I offered her hospitality, making sure I saw her home with food and, on occasion, some money. And yet, despite my efforts to keep your family fed, with each passing day she seemed to shrivel up into herself. When one day she did not come for her regular visit, I knew she had died. I went to your house and found her lying on her cot with a simple wooden crucifix between her folded hands.

  And then your daughter came home. She was twelve at the time. Clara had sent her off to buy some bread, and Bernadette had returned with a small round loaf in her arms. I moved to block her view of her mother lying in state and ushered her back out the door with the promise of candied almonds. Back at the parish church, I told her what had happened to her mother, though I never told her about the deadly monkshood flowers I found crushed between Clara’s teeth.

  Clara was a good woman. May she rest in peace.

  ___

  I soon encountered a quandary. It would have been unseemly to allow Bernadette to stay in either my home or the parish rectory—what would the townspeople think seeing this girl taking residence with the men of God?—and yet I could not in good conscience leave the child to fend for herself in the street. The only solution was to have her reside at a nunnery.

  Bernadette took well to cloistered life. Indeed, I daresay the child found her calling. After three years living with the nuns, at fifteen she took the vows. During that time, she blossomed into a pious, beautiful young woman wise beyond her years. But alas, her service to God was short-lived. Smallpox tore through Barcelona a few short months afterward. Neither a life spent in prayer nor the convent’s walls could spare her from her fate. In mere days, her skin was studded with pustules that looked like grains of rice, except they were red, yellow, and white. These inflammations swelled on her flesh, growing bigger as they claimed more ground, and bursting with foul water at the slightest touch when the skin was stretched too taut. They caused her burning pain. I prayed on my knees that the Lord God would restore her to health, but as her illness progressed it became apparent that her recovery would not be His will. Before long, she was bedridden. Sensing how ill she was, I administered her last rites. I knew she was not long for this world.

  That night, while I was returning home, I pondered why it was that this child of fifteen summers ought to suffer and die while cutthroats and thieves grew fat and wealthy. The Lord did say that the kingdom of heaven belonged to those who follow the beatitudes, but it did not make the circumstances seem any less unfair. I resolved right then, that if it was God’s will that your daughter should live, then I would be the instrument through which her life might be saved, even if that meant resorting to unconventional methods.

  Instead of retiring to my home, I went instead to the house where my deacon lived. It was well past nightfall by now, and he was understandably apprehensive when he answered my knock at his door.

  The parish deacon at the time was Rosario Dieguez al-Maqdisi. He was a Morisco from Granada. Reared in the teachings of Mohammed from an early age, he became a follower of Christ in his adulthood. Indeed, he was zealous in the
defense of the Church, having fought in the Fifth Crusade. It is said that, when he was captured and brought before Sultan Al-Kamil, Rosario spat in the heathen king’s face. For that, his right hand was lopped off at the wrist, which got him the nickname “el manco,” or “the maimed one,” though no one ever said that to his face.

  Swarthy, well-built, and stern, Rosario cut an impressive figure. The man could split a block of granite just by scowling at it. And when a glower failed to get his point across, the gleaming hook that took the place of his missing hand was often more than convincing.

  While these qualities did little service to him as a deacon, they were perfect when he served as the parish inquisitor—which was, ultimately, how he devoted the majority of his efforts. The man worked like a hound that had scented blood, seeking out occultists, devil-worshippers, and wrong-thinkers with ardor. On occasion, his raids would turn up stockpiles of heretical books. Most of these went to the pyre except for a choice few, which I kept hidden in my study. Rosario knew I kept these books, but he also could keep a secret, which was another reason he was so good at his work.

  The inquisition had left me with no want for esoteric books. Before long I had amassed a small library. I thought at first I would keep them as trophies of past exploits, but the more I collected, the more curiosity gnawed at me. Heavens, what wondrous things these books promised, if their methods actually held any water. It was all nonsense. Spells to make the crops grow, or the rain to fall, or to find a lover. However, one book in particular stood out from the others in my collection. Vividly I remember setting it on my desk, a smile on my face as I prepared to roll my eyes at the foolishness that no doubt awaited me within its pages. No sooner had I opened it than my smile was swept clean off, and my body took on a slick sheen of cold sweat. Rosario had seized a grimoire—an actual grimoire—and what it spoke of could not be dismissed as mere tricks to fleece the feeble-minded of their coin.

  He had gotten it during a sortie into the Pyrenees. Having heard rumors of a Basque witch living in the woods, he sallied out with a group of armed men and found her. Now, the Basques are an ancient people, older than the Visigoths and the Romans, and they are possessed of certain knowledge that was old when the world was new. This much Rosario could appreciate, for he knew the value her grimoire would hold for me. That, too, was why he spared the book even as the witch’s cottage went up in flames, with the witch herself nailed to a chair within it.

  This was a true book of witchcraft. It bore all the signs of legitimacy. I would not be surprised if the legendary Witch of Endor who summoned up the shade of Samuel at King Saul’s behest had a copy of the book that lay open before me.

  Judging by the handwriting in the book, the same person had copied each spell into the tome, but the spells themselves each came from different sources. I myself can read Castilian, Latin, Greek, and Aramaic. It is through my familiarity with these languages that I was able to spot translation errors—errors that would have been made by people with some working understanding of the source languages, but not true fluency. The translations from Latin could be understood with effort, but the Aramaic passages were nearly unintelligible. The written symbols resembled Aramaic, but looked as though they had been copied down merely by sight by someone with no understanding of what they stood for or how to properly shape them. Still, the fact that the book contained portions in Aramaic spoke of its age. This book was no hoax. It might not have been a stretch to believe some of these passages had been penned by a certain mad Arab from the burning sands in the east.

  Standing at Rosario’s doorstep that night, I explained what I intended to do about Bernadette. I would be lying to you if I said the stolid man did not flinch at the notion, but Rosario was as loyal to me as he was devout, and offered his support in my endeavors. Together, we weaved through Barcelona’s darkened streets, arriving at my house, where we ascended the stairs to the study to consult the Basque witch’s tome. What horrors it contained … it does not bear repeating in detail. Nonetheless, in its pages we found an incantation we thought would serve our purposes.

  It was a very old spell. Many a candle we burned through the night as we attempted to parse the poor quality transcription, rendering it from Aramaic to Castilian. It was instructions on how to bind a djinni.

  Rosario’s jaw dropped in mute shock when he heard that word. It instantly recalled tales from his youth, when he was being brought up in the worship of Allah. As I was unfamiliar with the term, he explained that a djinni was a creature of smokeless fire, a very old and very powerful being. He related stories his father would read him from the Qur’an about how King Solomon the wise managed to trap one and make it do his bidding. A djinni could perform feats thought impossible—constructing palaces overnight, becoming invisible to the eye, and even, perhaps, curing one of a mortal illness.

  Armed with this knowledge, we set about gathering the necessary ingredients. It took us all of the following day, but we located them surely enough. What they were, and how we prepared them for the ritual, is of no consequence; let it suffice that by the following evening we were ready.

  Nightfall found Rosario and me in my study. In with us were four burly peasant men. As I had no idea what to expect should the djinni be summoned successfully, I figured it wise to have extra men on hand in case the entity was hostile. The men were plain folk, possessing more by way of arm and back than brains and wit. They had the sense to agree when offered gold for their silence, even without first telling them what they had gotten themselves into.

  Rosario bolted the door shut and stood with his back to it, he and the knife on his belt ensuring that no one would leave without his saying so. Meanwhile, I went about lighting the candles in the prescribed pattern. Strangely, as each candle was lit, the room appeared not to brighten but instead to grow darker. All we could see were the outlines of our faces and the tiny coronae of light dancing atop each candle. The peasant men grew uneasy, some anxiously shifting their feet and others murmuring snippets of the Lord’s Prayer.

  I lit the final candle. I ignited the bowl of powdered ingredients. Then I stood back and said the words. Nothing happened. Then the floor was rent asunder in the middle of the candles and a plume of smoke burst from it, as though hell itself had breathed into the study. A mighty gout of fire shot to the ceiling in a constant stream of blazes, resembling a pillar as wide around as a large man’s grasp. The room shook, and several men and I were knocked to the floor; Rosario just barely kept his footing by hanging onto the doorknob. Throughout all this, I thought I heard myself shout, “Dear Lord, save us!” although I cannot be sure, as the noise was deafening.

  But no sooner had I called out than the manifestations ended, and a voice answered me: “Your god is not here.”

  I stood up from the floor looking in the direction of the thing within the circle of candles, and yet unable to set my eyes upon it. My eyes simply could not be compelled to shift in its direction. Each time I tried, they moved away of their own volition.

  “Dare thee to gaze upon me, humans?”

  Its voice—if you could call it that—was a snake’s hiss and a bass drum’s boom, and louder than a church organ. Its mouth did not produce any sound, rather, the djinni instilled images, words, and speech into my mind. This was communication on an intimate level, deeper than what could be achieved through spoken language. Every idea the djinni put in my head was smoldered indelibly into my memories as if with a cattle brand. I cannot forget any of these alien images, ideas, feelings—though I wish I could. They are now forever a part of me, and this is what makes them so terrible. Such is the price for communion with djinni.

  “Answer me!” it bellowed, shaking the window shutters in their frames.

  I lowered my arms from my face. Standing in the ring of candles was the very epitome of the human form—a beautiful bronze man with chiseled definition and frosty blue eyes. It was perfectly hairless and plainly naked as it hovered with the tips of its toes grazing the floor. Its form con
stantly changed. Its burnished orange body seamlessly shaped and reshaped itself before my stunned eyes, parts of it becoming feminine as others grew more masculine, and running the circuit through all points in between. First it had two bare breasts, then many along its belly like a pregnant dog, then none, then one that grew from out of the top of its shoulder, and when that one receded back into the skin it sprouted again from the flesh of its penis.

  I … I find it hard to confess, but … my heart leapt in my breast at how beautiful it was, and I—forgive me—I gripped my erect manhood with both hands and wept, falling to my knees, wanting only to surrender myself to this sublime being and forever be its own. Whatever it would have asked, I would have given. Did it want my eye or my ear, or all my skin, or perhaps to know me sexually? Oh, what I would have given to be called its favorite among however many wretches like me it had conducted into its harem. Harem? Ha! That presumed too much of myself. All I wanted was to ever be at its side like a lapdog with its master. I would have committed any number of disgusting atrocities for the slightest look of approval. I wanted right then to die, and would have died happily, if it meant spending forever with my glorious golden god.

  My body crumpled forward, my forehead resting on the floorboards. I would have remained this way, if I had not been roused by a shout from behind me. Rosario roared and shook his head like an enraged bull, stamping his feet and frothing between gritted teeth. He clutched his temples and shook his head, and when he had gathered enough clarity of mind, he leveled a penetrating stare at the djinni and yelled, “Enough!”