Consumed- The Complete Works

by Kyle M. Scott

  “What have you done to my mommy?” the kid cried.

  “Nothing less than she deserved, kiddo,” the creature inside the man teased. It moved around the bed until it was positioned over the boy, just as the priest himself had done, before it jumped into the old bastard’s body.

  It wore a man’s smile, but little Joseph knew better. This was no man. This was some kind of monster!

  “Monster is a little harsh, kid.” It said, reading his young mind. “I like to think of myself as something of a Samaritan. Doing God’s work, if you like. Look around you, kid. Just take a good long look. You live in this big, expensive house in the finest, most up-market district in the state. You want for nothing. Yours is a life of plenty. It’s just plain-fucking-sailing for you and your family, isn’t it?

  “Or rather, it was…” the thing laughed, enjoying itself.

  The boy was openly sobbing now.

  “Do you really think all this shit you see around you came from hard work and perseverance, kiddo? Hell no! Those traits are commendable. Those traits are admirable, but those traits are for fools. Your mom and dad knew that. They knew it too damn well. You could say they chose the fast route, and trust me when I tell you, you gotta do some dark shit to go the fast route.

  “Do you know just how wicked a woman your mother was, Joseph? Have you any idea the things that woman did in her past. She was no innocent, little man, despite all the recent holy-rollin’ horseshit. Neither she nor your father. You’re too young to hear the tales, but let’s just say Mom and Dad got to where they ended up in this old life by cutting a whole lot of corners...if I had ten cents for every itty-bitty baby-skeleton buried out there on the outskirts of your town, I’d be off to Vegas for a fun-filled Friday night.

  “They made a deal with the Devil, you might say…” it cackled.

  “Got the idea from their parents…your grandparents. Did you know they were brother and sister, your Mom and Dad? Their parents practically demanded it of them.

  “Clearly, Gran and Gramps weren’t the best role-models, and you’re better off without them, too buddy. I’ve also been looking to play with them, but that’s another story. Anyway…”

  The beast squatted by the side of the bed, sighing. “I’m sorry I had to use you to break through, buddy. I am. I take no pleasure in traumatizing a little kid, especially one as nice as yourself, but needs must. Your parents owed me, Joseph. And I always come to claim, one way or another.

  “Dear old dad…he came to me by heart attack. An unexpected but fun surprise. Your mother, though, she was strong. She had a lot of damn mileage left in her.” It looked down at the broken, bloody corpse on the rug. Maggots still oozed from the woman’s corpse and paddled in the pool of blood and shit like happy children.

  “Not looking so hot now though, is she, kiddo?”

  The boy said nothing, only continued to weep.

  Not much of an audience, it mused.

  “Anyway, I got real lucky with the priest. It’s not easy passing over into a holy man. It’s a bitch, to be truthful, but this asshole was as far from holy as I am, or close enough for it not to matter. Relax, kid…He’s gone now, and he was the only real danger facing you in this whole fucking fairground.”

  Joseph blinked once and swallowed hard.

  “Fine…Jesus! My humor is obviously wasted on you, little buddy, so allow me to leave you with a final thought, before I hop on out of here and test out this perverted old fuck’s body.”

  “Now, please allow me to introduce myself…”

  The Devil loomed over little Joseph, grinning. His mouth was a sea of razor-sharp shark’s teeth, His tongue forked and serpentine as it slithered free like a snake and licked Joseph’s mother’s blood and sick from the old man’s beard. Joseph stared into His terrible eyes and saw his parents, hurling through the blackest void, seemingly lit from an incomprehensible source as shadows clawed and shredded and severed.

  “There’s no time in here, kiddo. No time at all. They’re mine and they’ll suffer…they’ll suffer forever and in ways you can’t possibly imagine. Now you be a good boy, Joe. Work hard and be honest, or I’ll come back for you, too. I’ll come back and I’ll do you like I did your cunt of a mother. Do you hear me, son?”

  Joseph gulped.

  When He roared, His voice was the sound of a billion souls burning. Joseph could smell the stench of forever on His breath. “DO YOU HEAR ME!?”

  “Yes, sir,” the boy muttered, dutifully.

  Just like that, the monstrous thing stood before him was a man again. An old man, kindly and gentle, getting on in years but with a keen mischief shining in his eyes.

  The Devil winked, then made for the door, whistling as he turned the handle and swung it wide.

  “Remember now,” he said softly over his shoulder as he crossed the room, “You be good. Don’t go playing around where good kids shouldn’t play. I got all the time in the world, kid, and I’ll be more than happy to spend it with you…adios.”

  The Devil strolled through the door and made his way downstairs, leaving behind the boy and the mother, content in the resolution that a satisfactory conclusion to business had been reached. He felt for the boy, he really did. But what could you do. He’d saw an opportunity and he took it. Kids, untouched by the banality of human existence and still steeped in magic and possibility, were the only way to break through from Hell. The rule was, they had to be the offspring of those who owed him. He’d merely planned to use the boy’s body to kill the cunt and drag her soul to the pit, but along came that priest, carrying enough depravity in his soul to make even the fallen angels shiver. Sometimes, fate just played you a happy hand. Once through the veil between the living realms and the dead, body-riding was a manageable endeavor, given the right circumstances.

  The priest, monstrous as he’d been, was the very definition of ‘right circumstances’

  . And when life gave you lemons, you made some fucking lemonade.

  Who had said that originally? Was it one of His, or one of the other guys? He couldn’t remember. Eternity had a way of fucking with His memory, and He wasn’t getting any younger.

  Anyway, it didn’t matter. What mattered was that He still had a little while to play in the old man’s skin before the dead body liquefied and the rot set in, and He was feeling good. Hopping down the stairs and opening the front door, he crossed out into the bright morning sunlight, sighing with delight as it kissed the old priest’s skin.

  Damn, He loved this planet. The inhabitants were just so damned fun.

  One day, He mused. One fucking day, all this will be mine. The fun I’m going to have…Praise Jesus. Hallelujah!

  As the birds sang their gentle song from the branches above, and the neighborhood kids reveled in the wonder of childhood, He made to exit the once happy home.

  He got two steps before a frail voice dragged him unceremoniously from his daydreams.

  “Hi there,” the elderly woman croaked. Beside her, an equally decrepit old bastard stood on shaky legs, looking like a gentle wind might topple his sorry ass in a hot second.

  Who the fuck were these two dinosaurs?

  “Excuse me, Father,” the old man stood on the path asked. “But is my daughter inside?”

  Daughter?

  Well, shit…the devil mused. How about that? If it isn’t Mr. and Mrs. Kid-Killing Satanist, 1969! Gran and Gramps!

  He’d been keeping tabs on these two shitheads for decades. They’d been smart, all these years, keeping themselves away from the boy, hiding out in their Hollywood mansion, trying to keep fit and keep the demons from their door, as it were.

  Well, you both really fucked up today…

  He gave them his most winning, kind-hearted smile.

  “Yes, she’s in there with Joseph. They’re up in the bedroom. She’s been waiting for you.”

  As have I, folks, the Devil said to Himself. As have I…

  “Come on,” he offered. “I’ll show you good people inside.”


  Smiling, the two elderly Satanists shuffled pathetically up the garden path. He walked behind them with a spring in his step, pondering their ageing flesh and all the ways he could make it sing.

  He could practically taste their souls.

  His souls.

  The Devil whistled as he walked, joining the birds in their sweet-natured song.

  When life gives you lemons…

  NIGHT TERRORS

  They’re coming.

  I can feel the darkness enshroud my senses as they approach; dark, silent, terrible things that suffocate my will with their very existence.

  Whatever they are, they have found me once again, and the terror that courses through my veins at their approach freezes me, eradicates all the inherent fight-or-flight instincts that a thousand-thousand generations of trace memory have imbued in even the meekest among us.

  As always, they arrive just at the right time to do their evil work, while I’m trapped in that awful, psychically violent and tumultuous place that exists somewhere between sleep and wakefulness. They make themselves known to me, and enforce their terrible control over my body.

  My mind.

  My spirit.

  I lie here in my bed, a slave to the ever-shifting darkness, the contours of my place of rest and fragile sanctuary, now transformed into little more than a concrete slab on which they can perform their infernal experiments upon my helpless flesh. My bedroom, adorned with all manner of comforting artifacts that date back to my very childhood , has taken on the dreadful dimensions of a torture chamber.

  Nothing is as it was.

  In the daylight, and in the long hours and days between these unstoppable night-time attacks, my room is…was…a place of love and memories cherished. All fifteen years of my short lifetime encapsulated in a humble room, no more than eight feet by ten. My own small cavern of wonders, filled to the brim with movie memorabilia - CD’s of all my favorite bands, posters from the movies I’ve grown up with and loved. I collect figurines, too… small, beautifully rendered recreations of the characters I adore, intricately detailed plastic testaments to a child’s love.

  The shelf that takes up the wall to the left of my bed is filled with such figures. I have them posed to suit my mind, carefully re-enacting scenes from the movies which entranced and mesmerized my childhood self. There are space battles taking place, ferocious combat between man and the undead, a rogue’s gallery of slasher movie killers, resplendent in their masked, murderous glory, costumed heroes and villains, poised for battle and ready to meet in combat.

  On normal nights, these little figures stand like sentinels, watching over me as I sleep. When I wake, they immediately remind me of who I am. My imagination is hotwired to my love of horror, science fiction, and fantasy, before the real world even gets a look in. I see them every day at sunrise, hear their epic battles take place in the film studio of my mind before I register the sunlight cast upon my pillow or hear the birds sing their soft songs by my window.

  Every morning, they speak to me as one, and tell me, ‘there is magic in the world.’

  Yes, there is magic in this world. There is wonderment and transcendence and limitless imagination, and they are the keystones of my personality, my reasons for living, my inspiration, my joy.

  Though there is another magic in this world besides the benevolent, and it has slowly eradicated the joyous cocoon I once inhabited.

  Sheltered as I was by my overbearing mother and my well-meaning stepfather, I knew this at an early age.

  Cinema has taught me well.

  There are monsters out there…real ones. They exist.

  Sometimes, they break through whatever construct of sanity and reason that we all operate under, and they come looking for us.

  Sometimes they find us.

  The second row on my shelf is dedicated to my heroes. Figurines of varying sizes stand in line, crossing thresholds of genre and franchise. Han Solo stands beside Aragorn, Master Chief is positioned close enough to hold hands with Indiana Jones. They are my friends, and they watch over me when I’m at play, in pain, awake, or in sleep.

  In this moment, though, as I feel the shadows that dance across my bedroom conspire against me and reach out with clutching, grasping claws, the figures only stand and stare with rigid plastic horror, despairing at what draws close to torment me, their loving master.

  I cannot make out the finer details of their features in the darkness of this hour, but I can sense those small, plastic eyes fall upon my form. In my mind’s eye, I see the despair painted on their faces.

  It is fanciful. It is make-believe. At my age, I should know better. I’m fifteen and should be thinking of romance and cars and what college I will someday soon attend, not looking to these mythical figures for comfort and support.

  Nonetheless, I do. They wordlessly console me in my increasingly lonesome world.

  But on these nights, when the real monsters come…I imagine all those tiny plastic companions would turn their miniscule heads and look away if only they could.

  I am alone in this most unique darkness.

  As the looming shadows crawl across the walls like giant black insects, I lay here, waiting, helpless and dreadful. My body is frozen, immovable no matter how hard I try. I can turn my head just a little, though my neck feels made of lead and my muscles burn with the onset of this psychic rigor mortis.

  From the neck down, I may as well be paralyzed

  My arms, heavy and leaden, hang limp by my sides. My legs rest under the bed-sheets like logs.

  It feels as though a huge weight, unseen, formless yet utterly within the physical realm, has been placed upon my chest. A huge concrete slab that no man, mythical hero or otherwise, can ever shift. It is the force of my terror bearing down on me, overriding my will, punishing my naivety at thinking that maybe…this time…I can finally find the strength to break free of these invisible, suffocating bonds.

  My heart…it beats like thunder in my chest, pumping fresh terror through my bloodstream and into my soul. I can hear my bones creak beneath this unseen pressure, threatening to finally relent and break apart like autumn branches on dead trees, cursed by wrathful winds.

  I hear something else, too, something I cannot ever hope to possibly describe, something that mocks my secular nature and pulls at my sanity, ripping apart and devouring my rationale like it’s a delicatessen.

  I can hear screaming, too.

  It begins deep in the recesses of my mind…somewhere far off, emanating from a place I dare not contemplate. My imagination has once again become my great enemy, and as the screams raise in pitch and in multitude, engulfing all my other senses with their thundering, all-consuming horror, my thoughts tumble endlessly into this dark, unspoken place from which they are borne.

  It can only be hell.

  There are a million voices now…a billion…and their wails and howls of torment and pain fill my head and pummel what small courage and hope remains with their dark, nightmarish symphony.

  I feel like my head will explode with the force of them. The volume grows and grows until I feel my brain will cave in on itself, bleed out, crumble to mush and run from my ears and pour from my nostrils.

  From the far right corner of my room, a shard of light appears from the hallway outside, piercing the terrible gloom.

  It should be a comfort.

  It is abominable.

  This light that now creeps into my sanctuary carries with it a darkness that no night can ever compete with. The door to my room slowly creaks further open, letting in more hideous light that slowly glides along the wall.

  Then they are with me.

  They have come again, heralded by demons. And soon, they will do their abyssal work upon me.

  They move towards me, ever so slowly, engineered by terrible intent. My thoughts lose focus. I begin to drift.

  Their dark hands reach from the shadows. I can feel their touch as they loom over my form. I feel their probing fingers as they invade both my
mind and my body.

  And then there is a deeper darkness.

  I feel my mind recede.

  I feel my thoughts tumble into a void of nothingness that is almost welcome.

  They fall upon me as I lose myself to the dark.

  When morning comes, the sunlight that fills my room contains no warmth.

  My therapist calls them, ‘Night Terrors’.

  He tells me that these awful night-time attacks are merely the work of an overactive imagination, combined with stress and exhaustion.

  A perfect psychological storm.

  He tells me that one in five individuals succumb to these unholy attacks all around the world, and that although each culture has imbued their own supernatural impression upon these beings, and that many afford them an altogether unnatural origin, they are merely figments of a troubled mind.

  I know better.

  My therapist is full of shit.

  I’ve been seeing my head doctor for a few months and I’ve found little of worth in his insights, or in his disregard for these nightly assaults on my spirit and mind that have left me all but a shell of who I was.

  I’m falling behind at school. I’m becoming more withdrawn. My eyes used to shine with the vitality of youth, now they are ringed with shadow, sunken and hollow. I can barely recognize the kid I once was in the mirror. What stares back at me is an interloper, someone wearing my skin, mimicking my traits, but lacking that spark that once made me who I was. I stare at the mimic behind the glass sometimes and I ask ‘who are you?’

  No answer ever comes.

  Since the ’night terrors’ began, my days have been wrought with dread. It permeates my thoughts and poisons my will. I rarely write anymore (something I once cherished, and was well known and rewarded for in my high school). My studies have suffered. While my friends spend their after-school hours enjoying the local cinema, or taking a trip up into the local woodlands to play guitar, smoke marijuana and make out, I rush home, make my way upstairs to my room, and shut myself off from the world.