***
Its hard writing with one hand strung up on a pole, but I hope someone will read this someday and catch this sick bastard. When he dragged me onto the platform and chained my wrist up, he also produced a fancy silver cup and held it to my lips. I resisted at first, but he squeezed my nose until I drank it. I don’t know what it was but it actually tasted delicious and I was so thirsty. I guzzled it all like a fool and he left me. His footfalls echoed and shook the whole platform as he stomped around checking on the other people. I don’t know what he is doing, but he didn’t offer very many of them a drink.
***
I woke up, no idea what time it is, but something is very wrong. My chest feels like someone is pressing down on it and it hurts to breathe. I looked around, panicking, but there is no one that is in any condition to help me. I may be in the best shape out of everyone down here. Mounted on the next post in front of me is a large wooden horse; I am staring at its backside. I know it wasn’t there when I fell asleep. There had been a man with long hair and broken glasses last I checked; I even remember trying to talk to him but he only mumbled. He gazed into my eyes only once, his orbs were like snow and I don’t even know if he could see me. Today he is gone and my kidnapper had replaced him with a wooden horse.
***
The tightness in my chest is still there, but I am getting used to it. I cough a lot and I feel like someone is choking me half the time. Other crazy stuff is also happening. My skin is leathery and taunt like the surface of a drum. Everywhere. My whole body. All the tiny wrinkles have vanished leaving behind skin as smooth as a brand new ice skating rink. Even the scar on my forearm from when my sister pushed me down and a stick plunged into my arm. I can’t even see the veins in my hands and wrists. Whatever is happening doesn’t hurt, it’s just more uncomfortable than anything else. He made me drink another glass full of whatever liquid was inside. Something golden and shimmery, like the lake at sunrise. I am not even going to pretend; I was drooling when I saw it and gulped it all down. He won’t speak to me at all, no mater how much I scream.
***
People are disappearing around me. Every time I wake, someone else has vanished, only to be replaced by the ghostly carousel animals. The carousel is filling up fast with a pale menagerie of rides. I must be loosing my mind, but where there was once that pile of people chained to the single post, is now a huge wooden hydra. A frozen monster. Its five heads are each fierce and facing a different direction. One is staring at me, I can tell.
***
Today my vision is cloudy. It’s as if in I am in the midst of a dense fog. I can’t even see across the platform any longer. But I don’t care; I don’t really want to watch what is happening. My chest is as hard as a rock. I pulled my shirt until it ripped away. I ran my hand over my chest and then my stomach. I don’t how else to say this, but my nipples freaking are gone! I thumped on my stomach and it sounds like someone knocking on a door. I think my entire torso is turning into wood. I can’t even feel my own heart beating. There is a terrifying stillness within my body.
***
I woke from a deep, dreamless slumber to sound of muffled circus music; I can’t see hardly at all, but I am sure the carousel is not moving and the band organ isn’t playing; the cogs and pulleys are as motionless as the animals encircling the platform. The grating music must be inside my head. I try to move around, sit up to see if I could see anything, but my feet are useless and just bang the platform like a mallet. My jeans are ripped, the zipper is spread open like an angry mouth with silver teeth. The disease has spread; my legs are fused down to the knee. In horror, I realize my privates have vanished, leaving behind only the curve of smooth wood. I scream but no one notices. The only person I can see now is a girl, but her face is gone, she is a ghost. A single horn spirals up from her forehead. I think of unicorns.
***
I must have passed out after all that. My eyes open, but painfully and slow as if my eyelids were coated in glue. My legs have been merged into one long appendage; my feet have curved outward. The ends are fanned out like a fish tail or something similar. I can’t move them or feel them. It’s as if I am looking at someone else. My arms are heavy and it’s almost impossible to keep writing. The fingers on my chained up arm are fused into a block and look like a hoof. The only reason I guess this other hand is still working is because I keep writing with it, but even the fingers on this hand are stiff and melting together. Just slower. It’s obvious now what’s happening to me and everyone around me. I can’t bear to write that down.
***
I can’t see anything but white, as if I were in the center of a blizzard. My nose is an inch from the paper now and it’s still hard to see what I write. And I am numb all over. The carousel music inside my head has become my heartbeat, my blood. And my only company. I don’t have much time. I am rolling this note up and swallowing it like a sword now, before I can no longer use my hand. Don’t forget me. I love you mom and dad.
Author bio: I spent 20 years serving in the United States Air Force, and have had the fortune to live all over the world, including Iceland, Germany, and in a tent for a year in Saudi Arabia. Always an artist at heart, I produced many paintings during my adventures. After my service, I settled down with my family (wife, two great daughters, 2 cats and a little white fluff dog) in small town Iowa, where I love to volunteer at the antique carousel. Now, I help people with intellectual disabilities to reach their potential and teach psychology classes at a local college. I am also the Director of Fantasy at Visionary Press Collaborative. I am working on my forth novel. I have been published in The Horror Zine, Horrified Press, Sirens Call Publications, Pleasant Storm Entertainment, Crypto and Co., Death Throes Webzine, and several other horror anthologies. Follow my blog "The Darkness Goes 'Round" at http://erikgustafson.wordpress.com/
Vermilion
A Traveler’s Account
By Stuart Keane
Case #BF9519922933
Journal transcribed from a series of hand napkins.
Napkin 1.
People say that life flashes before your eyes when you die.
They might be right and I suppose time will tell. I always thought stuff like that was hokum and made-up, bullshit created by a number of religions to give their servants peace at the crucial time, to make shuffling off the mortal coil a little less terrifying.
I’m not dead.
Not yet.
I do feel that time is imminent.
Facing your own mortality isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
Not that death is tapping me on the shoulder. In all honesty, with the amount of J.D. I’ve consumed in the past hour, if I saw a bloke in a black dress with a hood I would probably laugh so hard I’d die anyway. Could make his job easier, eh? Death…who’d have thunk it. Such a horrifying prospect becomes the butt of a joke in a drunk man’s mind.
Drunk’s the wrong word.
I wanted to put inibri…inb…inebrie… yeah, let’s stick with drunk.
I’m not drunk, just for the record. I’m a little on the way but let’s just say I’ve had plenty of practice and my body is immune to the fabled hangover. Getting drunk is rare but it takes the edge off. My friend, Jack, knows how to soothe my soul and calm my nerves.
He’s certainly having that effect now. Actually, I need a top-up, hang on…
…I’m back. Nearly dropped my pen then. I have two pens, stolen from the bar, both black. Oh yeah, I’m writing on bar napkins. I have a pile here so it should keep me busy for a while. I couldn’t find a pad and no one in here owns an iPad. I’m sat in my regular haunt, a bar called Jericho. Cool name, right? Coming here after work allows me to unwind and chill out. I know the regulars on a first name basis but rarely interact with them. Until tonight, that is.
God, this J.D. smells good. I’m going to take a sip now.
HA, guess what I just did?
I stuck my finger in the dead barman’s eyehole. Mainly because the eyeball isn’t there
anymore, hence the hole. It’s more of a groove, a fleshy tunnel. My finger slid right in, warm and comfortable. It’s hot and slick and I swear I just tickled his brain in there. As I stroked the membrane, I watched the body. It didn’t move.
Shame, that would have been too awesomeeeee!
The brain felt like the top of a Twinkie. Only a little more soggy.
Man, I could kill for a Twinkie right now.
You’re probably wondering why I molested some dead guy’s newly created face anus. Well, he’s dead, for one. Second, he’s lying on the bar beside me. That’s right, my new drinking buddy is a corpse, one with a hole where his eye used to be but you probably already guessed that. The victim of a rather cool shootout. I’ll get to that.
By the time his obese frame collapsed onto the bar he was toes-up. Who wouldn’t be tempted to slide a finger in..?
Napkin 2.
My actual drinking buddy, Richard, didn’t fare much better. To be honest, I hardly know … knew the guy. I came here from work just under two hours ago and he tagged along for the ride. Nice guy, but retarded in the fact he stutters and can’t speak properly but if he’s drinking and keeping his tongue occupied (drink, stripper’s nipple, whatever) then he’s a blast. It’s when he talks that I want to decapitate him and tell him to Shhhh.
Needless to say, someone beat me to it. During the chaos a Chinese guy, all short and screeching, lunged at him with a fire axe. I didn’t think to duck but it didn’t matter. Once the blade sliced into Richard’s neck it stopped dead. Probably lodged in a vertebra or muscle. Richard isn’t the muscly type though, so I’m going with the spine. God’s creation saved me this day. And the Chinese man’s lack of upper body strength. Remind me to attend church if I get out of here alive.
Richard died but not before spraying me in the face with his gaping gash of Hades. Blood got in my eyes and nose and ears and mouth and J.D. and, before I knew it, I was screaming at Richard to turn away because he was tainting my J.D. and getting my only Ben Sherman shirt covered in bodily fluids, and he obliged and plunged forward and landed on the axe which sliced through the remaining spine, and his head bounced along the ground all the way over there. Another body, also dead, sat with her legs spread, is now the final resting place for Richard’s head. Pussy and Dick’s head. HA!
Dick’s head.
Hilarious!
Why do I find this amusing? I just got a little excited and carried away. The above paragraph turned me on a little. If you’d seen what happened in the past hour, you’d be disconnected and cold too. But, napkins pending, I will get to that.
Also, I kill people. I’m a psychopath. Yes, you heard that right. Which explains the previous comments in all their psychological glory.
Shhhh. People don’t know this, I’ve got some issues. I keep them to myself. I want to be able to blend in, and bragging about my bloodlust…well, that’s not friendly, is it? I actually came here with Richard for a reason. I was going to kill him in the alley out back. It’s not monitored and doesn’t have CCTV so it’s the perfect location. A man can only take so much of that fucking stutter. Obviously I’ve been denied the pleasure of killing my workmate. I don’t hate the Chinese but I’m not their biggest fan right now.
Anyway, this isn’t about me.
We’ll get to that.
So you’re probably wondering what the chaos is all about? Lemme tell you!
When I…sorry, we (Richard and I) got here, we started the drinking with a Bud. It’s normal practice to line the stomach before the good stuff. Anyway, the TV was blaring behind the bar, some football game, before a NEWS FLASH appeared, stopping the game short. I heard half of the bar groan in unison. As a result I didn’t hear the beginning and I had to make do with reading the headline. The words were scrolling along the bottom and they said: MYSTERIOUS OUTBREAK. STAY IN YOUR HOMES AND DO NOT ANSWER THE DOOR.
Well, as you can imagine I found that highly amusing. It’s like something out of a Carpenter or Romero film. Horror films ain’t real. Even for a psycho like moi. They always get the little details wrong, which ruins it for a seasoned pro like me.
Richard turned to me and pointed at the screen. “Y-y-y-oou see-e t-t-that?”
I swigged some Bud. “Probably just another swine flu panic. Nothing to worry about.”
Richard nodded at that point and returned to his beer. Good boy!
Ten minutes later, the NEWS FLASH hadn’t gone away and the bar people were starting to get irritated. The bar (the actual bar where the booze is kept) was tucked into the corner of the room so everyone else was to our right. I was against a wall on my left. I liked this position. I don’t want any fags coming up behind me and…I’m only joking. I love gays…erm…
Napkin 3.
Moving on.
I don’t have anything against gays. I’d only kill them if they touched me. Luckily for the gay community, it hasn’t happened yet. Why am I confessing this to you? Well…I’ll probably be dead if you find these and if you don’t, I’ll be alive. Check your missing persons list…hang on, you won’t be reading this if I’m alive… paradox!
Anyway, so the patrons are getting a little annoyed. Richard’s face is smeared with panic and fear so I shake my head at him. “It’ll be fine. We’re in a bar full of testosterone and pool cues and I know the barman has a shotgun under the till. We’re fine. Safer than a bank vault.”
Richard nodded, unaware of my own minimal fear and the fact I just told the biggest whopping lie of my life. I lied and it got Richard killed. Which was the plan, I suppose. I could work for the government.
The first person to die was Jimmy, one of the pool freaks. You know the kind; the guy who stacks coins on the table for constant, competitive games of pool. I noticed his skin was a sickly shade of pale and sweaty and he swore it was a dodgy curry from the night before. His friend told him to take something for it and he did.
A chunk out of Sonny’s throat, his pool opponent.
Jimmy pulled away with a chunk of viscera between his lips. Sonny helplessly clutched at the bloody chasm in his throat. Crimson soaked his chest as he bled out before our very eyes. Gurgling erupted from his exposed jugular, the noise echoed around Jericho. No one stepped forward to help him, no one could. He was dead before he hit the shiny wooden floorboards.
I agree that was an extreme way to win a game of pool but…never mind.
Anyway, Jimmy was soon battered down by three men with pool cues. They beat him to a bloody pulp before one man, Chad, spread Jimmy’s lips and teeth across the edge of a booth bench and stamped his size twelve through the back of his head with a sickening squelch, crackle and pop.
Richard vomited on the floor. It stung my nostrils. I swear I could smell Sugar Snaps. The other men looked at Chad. “What the fuck, man? Why’d you do that?”
Chad shrugged. “Gotta aim for the head, innit?”
Another man, Travis, stepped forward. “Yeah, but a heads up would have been nice. You got skull on my new Converse.” As if to prove his point, he shook his left foot and a slab of jellified muscle flew across the room, hitting the bar. It slid down slowly and stopped halfway.
It’s still there now.
Some people. Apparently Chad and his friends believe in zombie movies. Not that Jimmy was a zombie, he was merely sick. Maybe there was news to this virus after all. All this and I just sat there. Observing. Like the sick sumbitch I am.
Richard needed some consoling at this point but I was more concerned with the shotgun the barman was holding. The barman, from this point of view, was a rotund, wheezing mess. His pale cheeks were mottled a permanent red from exertion…generated from walking back and forth once in a while. His black hair was slicked to the left, with product or grease or sweat or something that gave off a sour fragrance. That might have been his cologne. Eau de toilette indeed. His waistline bulged, testing the restraint of the trousers, belt and tucked-in shirt. Every nook and pit of his flabby belly was visibly taut against the sweaty, blue material of hi
s shirt.
Now you tell me, would you want this man holding a Spas 12 shotgun?
In this environment, with an outbreak imminent?
No.
But he was. He shook worse than a vibrator on full speed. Sweat was pouring down his face and staining his collar. And he was aiming the gun at the patrons.
That’s when things got really bad.
The patrons were fine, it’s the newcomers that scared the living shit out of me.
The door burst open and three women stepped into the bar. I thought we’d been overrun by bikini models. I didn’t know these broads but let’s name them Sandy, Candy and Mandy. I saw thigh and cleavage and tanned, toned stomachs with belly piercings and long glorious brown hair, blonde in one case (Sandy), and bodies you could break the law for. In another location, with me and them alone…and my bowie knife…
And bloody mouths. Let’s not forget the glazed over white pupils either.
With amazing speed, Mandy sprinted the small gap between the door and the pool table and latched onto Chad. Her teeth tore into his throat and ripped with such force and vehemence I heard it from back here. It was like a t-shirt being torn. Seconds later, Chad’s dead head whipped off the dartboard behind his friends. An arc of claret filled the air, peppering the walls and ceiling and everyone below it. His torso collapsed to the floor, blood spurting from the newly formed stump.
The barman shot at Mandy and missed. The sound was deafening.
Journals of Horror: Found Fiction Page 20