What Price Gory?

by West, Terry M.

  Trevor’s own features, a dark contrast to Cohn’s, grew pallid and unsure. He was unsure of sanity, reality. One thing he was sure of, though; he didn’t like being laughed at. Not by anyone. But it was especially galling coming from the dead man standing nude before him.

  “What’s the matter, kid?” Cohn finally said, breaking the ice. “Aren’t you glad to see me? I made this trip especially for you, after all.”

  Trevor suddenly chuckled and wagged a knowing finger at Cohn. “No, no, my friend. This is a fine nightmare or a complete hallucination. Nothing more,” Trevor asserted, managing a grip on this. It was the same conclusion that many of his fictional characters came to. Usually right before they were devoured in a most heinous fashion. The irony was not lost on him and he felt slightly humbled by it.

  “Or,” Cohn offered, “I really have returned from the dead. It’s another option, Trevor. Come on, you explore this possibility often in your stories.”

  “Okay, let’s say that you have returned from the dead, Andy,” Trevor replied, seeing an opportunity to work out his frustration in this illusion. “What have you come back for? To gloat, perhaps?”

  “Not at all,” Andy said, looking a little hurt. “I’ve come back to congratulate you. And to give you a warning. But before we get to that business, do you have a robe handy? I’m sort of a modest guy.”

  “Sure,” Trevor said, certain he was playing with a figment now. He marched to his bedroom. “I think it will stretch. If not, I could always sew two together.”

  Cohn chuckled and patted his belly. “Cute. You’re a comedian. I like that.”

  Trevor returned with the robe, and one did the trick.

  “You know,” Cohn said, stretching the robe around his girth and tying it off, “I’m a little disappointed in you. Being a fellow horror writer… or dark fantasy writer… or whatever the hell they’re calling guys who write spooky stories this week… I thought you would be more open to this. Deep down, don’t you believe in the possibility?”

  Trevor wasn’t sure. He mulled it over as Andy took a tour of his surroundings. Cohn admired a small bronze of a nude muscular man, stretching his arms to the heavens. Then he appraised the spattered painting of a nude female.

  “So what are you, straight or gay?” Cohn asked.

  “I’m bisexual,” Trevor confessed but proudly. “What does that have to do with this visit? Do you want a kiss or something? Should we call up your wife and let her watch? Or join us, perhaps?”

  Cohn laughed and shook his head. “No. I don’t jog in that park. I just always figured you for queer. So I guess I’m half right.”

  “Seriously, Andy. Did you come here to mock me?” Trevor said, as Cohn continued to inspect the spoiled art in the living room. “Because this is quickly becoming tiresome.”

  Andy made his way over to a recliner and fell into it, springs protesting loudly. He lifted the footrest, momentarily flashing Trevor before covering back up.

  “Make yourself at home then,” Trevor grumbled, finding no clean place to sit. So he stood.

  “So I guess you’re ready for an explanation,” Cohn said, looking very comfortable.

  “It would certainly help at this point, yes. What are you here about?”

  Cohn shifted the chair to its natural position and stood back up. “I’m here about the blurb, of course. That small gathering of words that could change your life for the better.”

  “What about the blurb, Andy?” Trevor asked anxiously. He put his pride in his back pocket. If this ghost or whatever it was knew of the blurb and its current whereabouts, Trevor would soften himself. “That blurb is very important for me, Andy. You know it is. Did you write it? Please tell me.”

  Cohn smirked. “Maybe. It depends.”

  “Depends on what, Andy?” Trevor said, trying to sound civil but feeling bile standing ready at the back of his throat.

  “On whether you pass the test.”

  “Test?” Trevor asked. “What’s this about a test?”

  “Well… test, trial, ritual… call it what you will. You are not going to become the king of horror by simply stepping over my corpse and declaring your monarchy to the world. You don’t pull it from the stone, Trevor. If you want it, you have to take it from me.”

  “And just how do I do that?” Trevor asked suspiciously, but quite sure he was the man for the job. He was superior to Cohn. He had always known this.

  “Before we get to that, here is where the obligatory warning comes into play,” Cohn explained, his face growing serious. “Being the king calls for tremendous sacrifice. You’ll never see the beauty in things again. You’ll only see the darkness. It won’t matter what you are looking at. Can you handle that, Trevor? Think of all of the beautiful things out there that you will miss.”

  “I find the darkness to be a beautiful and majestic creature,” Trevor said, as if he were being interviewed for a magazine.

  Unimpressed with the sound bite, Cohn continued with his warning. “It corrupts you. This malignancy grows inside of you. Oh, sure. You’ll put on the happy face. But after awhile, that happy face is only good for the dust jackets. When you’re all alone, you will have to live with it. It aches so much, you have to peel it off and accept what you are.”

  Cohn demonstrated by pulling off his face. Beneath his skin, a black, cancerous sickness pulsed and oozed. His eyes glowed in the tar pit.

  It was one of the vilest things Trevor had ever witnessed. He cleared his throat loudly as the stench of the infection hit him. It smelled like raw sewage set afire and it was so thick he could almost taste it. He was amazed his lunch was still in place.

  “A lot of people look at writing horror as a purge,” Cohn continued, the red gash of his mouth swimming in the black pool. His cheeks rippled as he spoke. “You think you might be exercising some deep-rooted dark desire or violent fantasy. We are all a thought away from becoming a monster, you know.”

  Trevor interrupted Andy, making a soft request. “Andy?” Trevor said, motioning to the man’s face.

  “Yeah, it’s pretty funky, huh?” Andy replied, putting his skin back on. Once it was in place, his explanation resumed. “When you wear this crown, you become a sort of sin-eater. The horror you create taints you, body and soul. The dark you bring lingers; your readers can put it down and walk away from it, but you never will. It will haunt you. Every page, every paragraph, every sentence; every word that assaults paper. You won’t be getting the demons out of your head. If anything, you’ll take more in. You’ll be whittling away at your soul with a dull blade every time you pick up the quill. But you’ll have to, because those demons inside will insist on having their say. If you pass the test, you’ll be the king. But you’ll rule a kingdom of shadows and your queen will be agony and she will be faithful, Trevor.”

  Trevor digested Cohn’s words slowly. His confidence in shrugging off this lunacy was faltering. He felt in over his head. This fantasy was a vessel that he had no guidance over, so he simply decided to abandon it and smother himself in more brandy and sleep. If this imagining felt the need to play on, it could do so without him in attendance.

  “I won’t indulge in this any further,” Trevor said, realizing he was really only talking to the air. Cohn wasn’t there. This was all in the childhood empire of make-believe and it was time for him to grow up. He really was too old to harbor imaginary friends. “I am going to take a tranquilizer, crawl into bed and call my therapist in the morning. Good night, Andy. Do drop in anytime.”

  Trevor retreated toward his bedroom.

  “Don’t be ashamed,” Cohn called after him. “You know your limits. That’s healthy. You wouldn’t stand a chance against me.”

  Trevor stopped as if an invisible wall had suddenly been erected in front him. He turned around and decided to entertain this fabrication after all. He shined with fury. Had this dead asshole just called him a coward?

  “You’re just trying to scare me, you glorified hack! Death will be a great help to
you, Andy. It will save you from further literary embarrassment. Your writing really had something, once. Sure, it was a little simple. See Jane run from monster, if you will. But it was entertaining. It was like watching a mentally challenged child trying to catch a football. It was a bit ludicrous maybe, but you had to admire the effort.”

  Cohn watched the display with a patient grin. Trevor paused, shutting up only long enough to take the breath that would conclude his rant.

  “Your talent went to pot like your overfed belly. Dream or reality, sane or mad, I’ll accept your challenge, Andy Cohn. I will accept it and I will beat you!”

  “I’ll say this one time and one time only,” Cohn warned. “Your pride is getting the better of you. You really need to consider this carefully.”

  “You’re the one who put the glove to my face, Andy. It’s duel time, bitch. This is going to happen,” Trevor said, anxious to prove his authority.

  “Okay,” Andy said, holding his hands up to signify his warning had been issued and ignored. “Just remember that there aren’t committees in this where you can lodge a complaint if things don’t go your way. There’s a degree of finality here that you have to appreciate.”

  “What do you mean?” Trevor said, smelling something foul, and it wasn’t Andy’s face. “What exactly does this test entail?”

  “Something you’re good at,” Cohn assured him. “You just simply use your imagination. You let loose the most ferocious images your mind can conjure. Whoever caves in first loses.”

  “What, you mean like whoever soils their knickers? Whoever gets scared first?”

  “Whatever falls out of your pocket,” Cohn elaborated. “It can be anything under the umbrella of an absolute freak out. It has to be something that shakes you to your core; something that leaves a black mark on your soul. Dread, revulsion, fear, apprehension… there all shades of the same color.”

  Trevor had a realization, and he spotted a bit of treachery. “But you’re dead. What can disturb you? Aren’t you past all of that now?”

  Cohn shook his head, grimly. “Oh, Trevor. Fear doesn’t stay with the corpse. It follows right along with the soul. There are things that inspire fear beyond the flesh. There are terrifying sights to behold. I still have to bolt my door at my new address. You’ll find this out, sooner or later. Sooner, would be my guess.”

  Cohn’s threat was lost on Trevor. He was the better man. Why should he be intimidated?

  “Anything else I should know?” Trevor pressed, feeling that there was. This dark course he was about to take surely had some fangs in the mix.

  “These things we’re bringing forth,” Cohn explained. “They’re intangible. But if you feed them, Trevor. If you give them any fear…”

  “What, they can hurt me?” Trevor guessed.

  “They can kill you,” Cohn corrected him.

  Trevor spotted still more deceit. “But can they kill you, Andy?”

  Cohn considered it. “Well, I am already dead. So I would have to say… probably not.”

  “So all of the odds are in your favor, then,” Trevor concluded darkly. He knew dirty pool when he saw it. “I mean, if you take death out of the equation, it slims the apprehension down considerably.” This could prove a psychological handicap. The time for backing out was over. Trevor was committed, and he was reasonably sure Cohn would hold his feet to the fire if he dared a second thought, now, anyway.

  “You are always at a disadvantage when you face the reigning champ,” Cohn explained. “You just have to be creative, Trevor. And you wouldn’t be standing here if you didn’t have the chops.”

  “How do we go about this, then?” Trevor said. He gathered all the courage he could find and he made a big ball out of it. He then added his ego to the blend. It was quite a potent mixture. This was his destiny. It was his time. Cohn didn’t have a chance.

  “We’re at a fair enough distance,” Cohn gauged. “We face each other like gunfighters in an old Sergio Leone movie.”

  “Could we say Peckinpah? I do rather enjoy a bloody orgy,” Trevor suggested, a little cocky and high on his own brew.

  Cohn shrugged good-naturedly. “Whatever puts the helium in your balloon. The contest, you’ll find, is a fairly simple exercise. You just imagine something. Anything you want. It will manifest in the space between us. You follow?”

  “I’m there,” Trevor said, cracking his knuckles. “So who goes first? Should we flip for it?”

  “No,” Cohn declined. “You go first. I’ll give you the advantage.”

  Trevor’s mind began unpacking. He thought of his first novel, The King (critics loved it by the by) and he saw a little ironic color in bringing it out first; he was fighting for the throne, after all. And if his freshman effort was capable of taking out Cohn… the triumph would be even that much sweeter. Trevor’s brain drew an image of the abnormally large king cobra from his story. His book had been set in and during ‘Nam. The snake, a genetic freak of nature, had terrorized an American platoon in the tale.

  The snake faded in, like the establishing shot of a film. It was enormous. It barely left any room between the two combatants. The snake began to slowly uncoil; its hood flexed; its soulless cool eyes fixed on Cohn. The snake’s back curved and shook mightily. It seemed offended by Cohn’s very existence. It was one of the few snakes that would actually track a human; go out of its way to cross paths with one. Bearing fangs, it hissed at Cohn. This was not a warning; it was a declaration of intent. Prepare to die, it was saying. The king cobra balanced itself to strike.

  Cohn stared back at it, not even a hint of dread on him. He reached out and stroked its head. The creature did not retaliate or try to stop him; it had no license. Cohn hadn’t fed it.

  Andy smiled. “I always loved snakes. I had a few, as pets,” he said, drawing back his hand as reality shook the beast away.

  Trevor was disappointed and decided his first attempt had been a juvenile stab. He could do better. Much better, and he should have led with such. He was consoled by the many horrors standing on red alert in his brain. They waited, sharpening their claws as they did so.

  “Okay, now it’s my turn,” Cohn said, as he mentally looked through his deck. He soon found a card to play.

  Trevor steeled himself as Cohn concentrated and opened the gate to his mind. A pack of dogs, the size of horses, appeared in the open space. There were four of them. They looked like a mixture of Rottweiler and Doberman; the preferred breeds of horror and Hades. They were from Cohn’s novel, Hell’s Threshold. Hellfire oozed from their jaws as they snapped hungrily at Trevor. He could feel the warmth emanating off of them. He could smell their horrid breath, which inspired nausea in him once more.

  His lunch finally gave up and came back out of his mouth, a little worse for the wear, ruining the prized shirt he wore. He rubbed the puke from his chin as the dogs continued to wail at him and spit hellfire in his direction.

  His nerve gave way a bit, and one of the beasts managed to get hold of his arm. Trevor pulled away, his sleeve and flesh ripping. He got angry, maybe because of the fate of his cherished and expensive shirt, or the pain of his punctured arm; but most likely because he had looked like a complete and utter fool in front of his rival. However he got to angry, it was a good route for him to take. The dogs vanished, leaving his arm and pride slightly wounded.

  Trevor felt spent already. He nursed his arm and stared at Cohn.

  Cohn shook his head and whistled. “You got to admit, that was a close one. You’re not going to make this too easy for me, are you? That was kid’s stuff compared to what’s in store…”

  ***

  Trevor had no idea how long the contest had lasted. Hours. Weeks. Maybe forever and a day. He had just barely survived the latest jab from Cohn’s imagination. To his credit, Trevor had hung in there. He had survived every horror that had been thrown at him; from a demonic mime that lived in closets to a slithering, Lovecraftian beast that could get at you through the taps and toilet. He had taken quit
e a beating. But he was still standing. He had minor wounds, some messier than others, all over his body. He could account for every one and knew which exact horror he could thank for that specific scar. His skin looked like he had wrestled with a briar bush. He was an absolute mess of vomit and blood.

  Trevor had squeezed his own nasty imagination dry in response, but Cohn still looked fresh. Fear hadn’t licked Andy’s cheek. Not even once.

  Trevor, on the other hand, was showing his mortality quite prominently. He was hungry, exhausted and painfully sober; three things he did not want to be at the moment.

  Cohn stared at Trevor sympathetically. “If this were any other contest, where life and soul weren’t on the line, I would advise you to stay down and let the referee count,” he said.