Year's Best Hardcore Horror Volume 2

by Wrath James White

  “Uuuurrrlgh!”

  Anja clawed at her throat, raked her nails over Lord’s thighs and testicles as he began fucking her throat with a cock that was now nearly as long as she was and half as wide. Her neck ruptured, splitting like a banana peel. Blood poured from her nose and ears as his cock pulverized organs and battered her intestines. She shuddered and convulsed, dangling from the end of his impossibly large organ like a spent condom. He tossed her aside and picked up the book of sins from where it lay beside the inverted crucifix—beside Sophia’s corpse. Kicking Anja aside, Lord wrenched Sophia free of her shackles and gathered her in his arms. He stroked her hair tenderly, then knelt down and put his lips to hers breathing life back into her. She blinked several times, looking around in a panic.

  “It’s okay, Sophia. Your Lord is here. You are safe.”

  It was almost dark again. Almost time for the club to reopen for a whole new crowd of deviants and sinners. They would come for sex, for pain, for ecstasy and death. The curious. The desperate. The deranged and debauched. And they would all bow to their new Lord.

  THE HALLOWFIEND REMEMBERS

  JEREMY THOMPSON

  From Sanitarium Magazine, Issue #41

  Editor: Barry Skelhorn

  Publisher: Sanitarium Press

  ______

  The first recollection: age sixteen, that unforgettable All Hallows’ Eve. Nestled in a Ford Tourneo’s rearward seat between two brawny accomplices, he fingers an aluminum bat, spray-painted Day-Glo orange. His sweatshirt and sweatpants match that fluorescent shade, as does his skeleton mask. As a matter of fact, scrutinizing the eight individuals filling the minibus, one would be hard-pressed to distinguish one from the other.

  And when the mucky vehicle screeches to a standstill—on a desolate street, where skeletal trees grope toward fog stars, and it seems that every deity has been blinded—the group bursts nightward, whooping and howling. Down come their clubs, again and again, obliterating the intoxicated plead-murmurs of a homeless encampment, shattering glass, staining frayed sleeping bags crimson.

  Piling back into the Tourneo, treacherously giggling, they exchange congratulations.

  “Man, did you see … one of ’em was a woman,” the Hallowfiend’s younger self gasps. “Ya know, we probably should’ve abducted her.”

  Silence meets the declaration, as it is too ludicrous to respond to. After all, how does one kidnap a corpse?

  The second recollection: age seven, an earlier All Hallows’. Having ditched the neighborhood family he’d accompanied on their trick-or-treating trek, the Hallowfiend’s childhood self ascends a paved hill, one slow step at a time. His weighted-down pillowcase makes his arms ache. Sweat clouds his corpse paint, and stench soaks his reaper hood. Silver-streaking the sidewalk, his cheap plastic scythe drags behind him.

  Rightward, he sees parallel streets teeming with ghouls, bats, arachnids and goblins—frozen upon green lawnscapes, string-tethered to overhangs—with masquerading families parading from household to household, spewing the customary catchphrase in exchange for sugared confections.

  Leftward, he spies only shadowy underbrush: shrubs and saplings, wherein sting-insects lurk. Soon, the vegetation will be slaughtered, the site paved over to birth additional neighborhoods, resembling those rightward residences glimpsed in a mirrorscape. Perhaps aware of this factoid, the shrubs seem to whisper, until screaming, a young unicorn bursts out from their depths.

  Upon closer inspection, the unicorn is actually a costumed human: a young female wearing a coral fleece onesie. Her hoof slippers are muddy. Integrating with downflowing lacrimae, snot slides from her nostrils. Her face ripples as she moans, “Where’s my mommy?”

  Shrugging, the Hallowfiend’s childhood self continues on his way.

  Reaching the cul-de-sac of his latest foster family, he takes one last look at the moon. For him, it reveals its true countenance: a fanged jack-o’-lantern, ethereal radiance spilling through its sharp features. Smiling, the boy enters the residence.

  He sprints to his bedroom, to toss the pillowcase into the closet before his faux family can spot its widening gore blotch.

  The third recollection: infancy, his first Halloween. Contentedly gurgling, he lies on the sidewalk, staring up into the night sky, from which rain just ceased plummeting.

  Suddenly, a strawberry-costumed female looms over him, her flaccid, friendly features overwritten with concern.

  “Oh my!” she exclaims, crouching to lift him. “Somebody left you alone in a puddle. Who would do such a thing?”

  As her fingers brush his midsection, the better to heft him, a thunderous crack sounds, and the woman topples over. Where her friendly face was, flesh tendrils flank a shattered-bone cavity. Hair clumps and cerebral chunks curl into a pulpy grin as she settles.

  A younger woman materializes, gripping a revolver. Under her felt cowboy hat and purple domino mask, she chews her lower lip bloody. Passing the firearm to her correspondingly costumed husband, she tenderly scoops the Hallowfiend’s infant self into her arms.

  The couple’s soaked ebon locks hang down to their shoulders, resembling spider legs layered in olive oil. Their glittering oculi strain from their sockets, as they bustle their way into a battered Saab.

  As the man places one trembling hand on the steering wheel, and with his other keys the engine to life, the woman reclines in the passenger seat, her undernourished arms a child cage.

  “Quick, before the pigs come,” she implores.

  Tittering, her husband complies.

  Accelerating down a street of smirking pumpkins, they see no neighbors emerge from their homes. Mutilated, arranged in otherworldly tableaus, all are too busy decomposing.

  “Ya know, covered in bitch blood, our boy resembles a lil’ devil, doesn’t he?” the woman remarks, finger-tracing pagan symbols on the child’s crimson forehead.

  “His first costume,” her husband agrees.

  In the candy apple room decades later, wherein flame gutters from ebon candles, beneath rows of frozen latex faces, a guidance counselor cavorts. Snickers bars squelch beneath his footfalls. Fog machine vapor hangs heavy. Mummy moans and graveyard winds sound from hidden speakers.

  Disclosing three recollections as he skins a fresh All Saints’ Eve victim, peeling back the boy’s dermis and subcutaneous tissues to unveil a wet-gleaming ribcage, he then asks the pain-delirious young fellow a question:

  “At which point did I become the Hallowfiend?”

  <<====>>

  AUTHOR’S STORY NOTE

  “The Hallowfiend Remembers” was written in homage to slasher film franchise villains, whose gory exploits defined many late-night movie marathons throughout my childhood. Wide-eyed, my kid self watched Jason, Michael, Pinhead, Freddy and others stalk and slaughter youthful jocks, dweebs and bimbos, and return in sequels to start the cycle again.

  Realizing that their undying bloodlusts rarely permitted such evildoers to indulge in nostalgia, I decided to turn my serial killer contemplative. Primarily drawing inspiration from my favorite holiday, as well as the John Carpenter franchise that bears its name, I scripted snapshots of a madman’s lifetime, to be recounted by the villain himself to his current victim.

  “The Hallowfiend Remembers” appeared in the 41st issue of Sanitarium Magazine, which was edited by Barry Skelhorn. Prior to its selection for this Year’s Best collection, I hadn’t received much feedback on the tale, aside from someone snidely asking, “What’s wrong with you?” Ergo, I am equally honored and relieved to see it in this anthology.

  Initially, the Hallowfiend was intended for only a one-and-done short. He persisted in my mental recesses nonetheless, demanding more prose flesh to wear, more souls for the pumpkin. I found myself pondering the shape of his future. Arriving upon it, I was astounded by that destiny.

  Currently, I am writing a novel wherein the Hallowfiend returns to embark on a grand journey, staying true to his own evil nature all the while. Perhaps I should be worried by the ease
with which I crawl into the character’s perspective.

  THE FIELD

  MARVIN BROWN

  From Insomnia & Obsession Magazine #5

  Editor: Bob Pope

  Publisher: Rawketsock Design

  ______

  I

  I’ll never again see the field the way I did the first time it seduced me from the deserted highway taking me home and guiding me into a long cold night of its despair. You can only see such a thing that way once in your lifetime; the rest is ever-shifting approximations.

  Make no mistake, I still see the field. Its improbable existence remains the thinnest of threads snaking along and slicing into the breathing coils of my mind, leaving micro-cuts since the day I walked into that fallow field, until the final time I looked upon it.

  II

  I’m on the trip home from college. It’s a holiday weekend, Halloween, but that isn’t why I’m heading back to New Haven. A convenient excuse, since I’m going home to change the scenery—and interrupt the pain.

  I-95 North keeps serving up patchwork asphalt and my rickety Focus never gets tired of eating it. The Focus’ Bluetooth system lends my smartphone the car’s speakers. I love this sound system. My custom speakers are the best thing about my eight-year-old Ford. Clo thought so too. She loved blasting Taylor Swift. I let that shit fly because I loved her, because I was addicted.

  I’m a recovering romantaholic. I’ve been on the wagon for three weeks. During the first week of our breakup I manned up and refused to call, care or cry. But by Week Two I’d already begun touching myself while thinking about Clo and stared at her number on my iPhone with my thumb dangling over the dial button. Later, I found myself blasting Taylor Swift cuts everywhere I drove. Three weeks in I knew it was time to hit open road and put some space between myself and my addiction.

  I like to think of night as a blanket flung upward, me underneath waiting for its darkness to softly descend. Under this cover I think of things to pass time and keep my mind from Clo. My momma’s Sunday morning bacon and grits. The Ethics final, still weeks away, but already a block of ice in the pit of my gut. I think of how man made these hard roads on top of dirt ones and somehow put them everywhere. The last thing I’m thinking before seeing the phantom billboard: how many human beings had it taken to paint these never-ending solid and dotted lines down this highway?

  The car stereo cuts out and sudden silence jolts me. I look up from the road, drawn in by a beautiful glowing wall of fog. It’s in a field a quarter-mile ahead. First I think it’s some high-concept ad campaign. The billboard has to be translucent; I swear through it I make out a rusting silo and dilapidated barn. This is some slick advertising: a smoky, incandescent giant rectangle rising above redundant dark acres of farmland. The closer I get, the more impossible it seems. It’s made of swirling fog that never breaches it edges and is backlit by some unknown source.

  It takes a while to find an access road to the field I think contains the billboard, me inching the Focus along the berm with my high beams on. I find the road. The music kicks back on, louder than I remember setting it. Silencing it, I navigate a path along alternating green and dormant plots.

  I rationalize that I happened to find one of those farms tricked up for Halloween. Like cornfields cut into mazes, acres of unharvested crops used as haunted playlands for thrill seekers, where in one corner you can find a permanently parked old school bus promising doom to those who enter. I’ve gone far enough off the road to muffle sounds of highway traffic; it’s quiet enough to hear pebbles on the dirt path pinging against the undercarriage of the Focus and popping beneath its tires. The road ends at a field where ungainly stalks of grass, black to my vision, sway against a gray sky draining of light.

  Walking into a spot of field lit by headlights, my pre-law mind tells myself not to go any farther, lest I contaminate a possible crime scene. But whatever brought me here, pulls me onward, the tangle of crabgrass slowing my stride. My eyes adjust to night that’s deepening with every step. The field has been left to tend to itself and has chosen a state of anarchy. I hear and feel but cannot see night critters and insects tearing around the geography. The moon eventually helps steer me to a clearing. I step into it and see for the first time the crops of this field.

  Infants.

  Rows and rows of unclothed human infants. More than I can count. More than I can see. The field is alive with them. Dark, oily, naked, squirming. Some are crying, some seem nonplussed, their limbs jiggling silently. Uncountable pairs of white eyeballs float in an ocean of black grass.

  The sight wobbles my knees and my mind. I pull the cellphone from my pocket, fumbling it. I call for help. Reception is weak, but I reach a dispatcher. Screaming the situation into the phone, I’m asked four times to verify what I’m seeing. I’m pressed for a location, an address; I do my best to guide them here. I wait. I am afraid to move. I am afraid of what these children might think of me if I abandon them.

  Near me there is movement. I spin to see a woman walking out of the field. Haggard in moonlight, she looks through me until I motion toward her. It takes her by surprise.

  “Do you see this?” I ask. “I called for help.”

  “They won’t come,” she replies. “No one wants to find this place.”

  I’m realizing how chilly the night’s become, how much colder it must be for the children. Without hesitating I reach down and pick up an infant, shuffling to hold it correctly. Cocoa skin. Thick but tiny lips. Quiet. On the side of its face is a birthmark made attractive by symmetry: a deep-purple moth. I quickly carry the cold, soft child to the warmth of the Focus. By the time I get there the woman from the field is gone.

  I lay the child on the passenger’s side and pump up the heat. Over the fan I hear hissing from the back seat. I’ve made a terrible mistake. I shouldn’t have taken this child from the field. Something moves in the back, rocking the car. My heart’s bouncing against my ribs as I reach for the door handle. A smell drifts from the back as my vision tilts and bends. A crooked hand with seven fingers reaches out from the darkness, over the headrest, to take me and the child. I lose consciousness.

  I awake in my car parked on the I-95 berm as a semi blasts by. The child is gone and I feel hungover. I have all my body parts, and the car still has gas, so I tear out of here with an uneasy feeling that something from the field remains with me. I do a U-turn and drive to a motel I remember passing fifteen miles back, never once daring to look in the backseat. After checking in I commandeer beers from a Circle K across the street from this No Tell Motel.

  After showering and finishing a liver and onion sandwich, I sit on an unwashed bedcover jonesing to call Clo. God, I miss her in all her blond-haired blue-eyed perfection. First meeting her I thought her only flaw was her really thin nose. On our first real date she smiled and was rendered perfect; she smiled and was redeemed of my private criticism. I was mistaken to not understand she was made to smile. The smile curled her lips and slightly widened her nose, making her perfect. The smile is the thing. Now my finger hovers over the Chloe Stine thumbnail photo on my phone. A field of demon babies seems like a good enough excuse to call her.

  A pounding on my door pulls my thoughts from Clo. The door rattles in its frame. This craptastic motel doesn’t have an eyehole in the door, so I take a chance and open it.

  A terrified girl stands at the threshold. A caramel-skinned cutie.

  “Please, help me,” she says. “Three white guys. I think they mean to harm me.”

  “What?”

  She is trembling. “I’m sorry to bother you. I don’t know what to do.”

  “Where are they?” I ask.

  “They followed me around the mall up in Brookfield, then I think they’ve been following me down the freeway. I lost them, but I think they’re gonna find me.”

  There’s something familiar about her. I wonder if I’ve seen her on campus.

  “Can I come in?” She’s pushing into the room.

  “No!” I push
her back to the door. She looks hurt. “I’m sorry,” I explain. “I’m a little thrown off here. I’ll walk with you to the office. We’ll put in a report. Or call someone …”

  She’s scanning the hall outside the room, her wide eyes rolling everywhere at once.

  “Let me get my shoes on,” I tell her. “Stay here.” When I come back she’s gone. I stand where she stood, looking around for a few minutes. Back in my room I replay the incident, but before long I hear a muted scream. Down the hall. I get that tilting, bending feeling again. I hear more low screams near the stairs. The cement walkway to the stairwell wobbles. My breathing is loud and distorted in the lightless staircase. The screams draw me down the stairs, edging me onto the lower-level walkway, then three doors down. One. Two. Three. The screaming has stopped. The third door is cracked open. Don’t go in, I tell myself. Myself doesn’t listen to me. I widen the door with my foot and step into the room as an unlapsed Catholic crossing myself and counting rosary in my mind.

  Oh, God!

  The room should be lit dull yellow, but the bare bulb hanging by a wire and the walls sprayed red with blood gives the place a crimson glow. Blood is in places it can only get to by being flung there. The swinging light pulls and pushes shadows around this horror show. The girl is the room; she is all over it. Parts of her on the floor, fragments soaking and staining the dingy carpet. The smell is awful. Nothing I’ve ever smelled before, but I’m sure will hang in my nostrils like visual memory.

  A name defiling her in death is scrawled in ink on the wall over the blood-soiled bed. Among the carnage I eventually find her head, beneath its ear is a birthmark. Like an insect. A purple moth. I give up my liver and onion sandwich in two stomach-twisting blasts, a meal forever linked to this motel room, never to be eaten again.