The Aching Darkness_A Dark Fantasy Anthology

by Parker Sinclair

  “I removed it,” Joe said, taking a sip of a beer he’d brought with him. “Although, I left the nerves intact. Do you remember when I mentioned that I had known Jack the Ripper? Not sure if I told you, but he’s still alive. I sent the piece of meat over to him. I knew he’d get a kick out of it, as well as enjoy it with some chips and a nice pint.”

  I felt the liquor bubble a bit more, my stomach felt quite queasy. In spite of myself I further surveyed the body and noticed that many of the bones seemed to be displaced and broken. Most of the teeth were removed, and the tongue was sliced in half.

  “Wow, you really did a job on this guy!”

  “He deserves it.”

  I moved on to look at the face, trying to make out his features, maybe tell if I’d seen him before, passed a serial killer on the street. The remaining eye locked on me, held my gaze. I stumbled back and felt the booze rumbling up to the back of my throat.

  “Holy shit!” I said, trying not to puke. “He’s still alive!!”

  Joe looked at me with a soft expression. “Maybe the tequila was a bit much. Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m okay. I can’t believe he’s still alive, though.”

  “I kept Donovan’s nerves intact,” said Joe as he set his beer on the floor and approached the case. “I have actually amplified the nerve endings, so from every place where his body is damaged he feels excruciating pain.”

  I won’t lie to you, there’s a part of me that looked upon this torture and saw something monstrous. That death should have been enough and that in doing this Joe was just as bad as the man he was tormenting. But at the same time, I knew that if someone had hurt Alyssa, I wouldn’t have been so self-righteous. If I’d had the power, I’d do the same thing, maybe even worse.

  I moved forward again, studying the pleading eye. “So, how long can you keep him alive?”

  “Well, those other bones have been kept alive for over four hundred years. So, at the very least, maybe half a millennia.”

  The eye started to quiver as it moved from me to Joe and back. I couldn’t tell if it was the knowledge of his fate, or just from the sheer excruciating pain.

  “Want another beer?” Joe said.

  “Sure.”

  Joe seemed to be relieved that I hadn’t freaked out. There was also a sense of calm about him, something I hadn’t seen since I’ve known him. He looked me in the eye with an expression both wistful and contemplative. I knew he was thinking of her. “Would you like to see some photos and old movies of Danielle? I haven’t viewed them since she was taken from me.”

  “Absolutely.” I nodded.

  As we moved to leave, I could feel the quivering eye pleading with the nape of my neck. I ignored it and kept walking, exiting the trophy room without a second thought. After all, it was a damn cool trophy.

  Bathed in Blood

  Joe and I were kicking back with a couple of beers. The week had been a particularly rough one at the ER—a lot of death and a lot of blood, two things you couldn’t avoid in our profession, but the last seven days had been brutal. We lost more ground than we gained, and it was wearing on us when we left the hospital after our last shift of the week. I think Joe felt it more than me. His freaky blood control powers allow him to do a lot more than a regular surgeon, but even they have their limits. He never says anything, but I know it kills him inside when he can’t save someone. I get it, though. In all the years I’ve known him and assisted him in the OR, I have never quite gotten used to watching him work. It’s magic, literal magic, the way he can manipulate the body and its various tissues. Arteries and veins dance to his beat, a choreography of flesh and blood moving seemingly of its own accord. How could he fail?

  But sometimes he does, and when it happens, he takes it hard. There was nothing I could say to cheer him up. The guy’s been around the block a few times, after all. He’s heard every pep talk there is. So I suggested the age-old solution that was older than he was—drinking our cares away. And you know what? It worked.

  A couple of beers in and Joe started to become his old self again. Lately, in fact, he’d started to loosen up around me. It probably had to do with his latest “trophy”, an old priest named Donovan who had killed Joe’s girl. He’d gotten his revenge on the old man, and then some. The term “going medieval” has fallen out of favor since the 90s, but what Joe had done to this guy once he got his hands on him couldn’t be described any other way. He’d taken the guy apart like pulled pork and was keeping his remains in his trophy room in a glass case. And the kicker is that motherfucker is still alive. No idea how he does it, don’t ask me, but I saw this guy’s half skinned face, and the one eye he had left was staring straight at me.

  Since that win, I could tell that a massive weight had been lifted from Joe’s shoulders. We got along before that, I was his best friend so he shared his secrets with me. But I always felt like he was keeping me at arm’s length. These days, though, I almost felt comfortable enough with him to call him “bro”. Not that I would, of course, we’re pals and all but I sure wouldn’t want to get on his bad side.

  Eternal torture aside, I had always been glad to call Joe my friend, although during my time with him I couldn’t shake a feeling of inferiority. It wasn’t hard to see why. Joe had easily lived a hundred full lifetimes, lived longer than the oldest, wisest geezer that ever lived. And during that time he’d amassed experience, every experience the world had to offer, not to mention a front row seat for all of human history. It’s hard to top that with stories about your trip to Amsterdam, let me tell you. I always felt like a caveman when I talked with him. In reality, though, Joe was the caveman: ancient and eternal.

  I asked him a couple of times how old he was, and he kind of brushed the question off. He gave the impression that he didn’t remember, but I have a feeling that he knows better than he lets on.

  We were already a few drinks in when he launched into one of his stories. I always look forward to hearing them; I hate to admit it, but sometimes I find myself living vicariously through Joe and his true tall tales. Partially because my job at the ER leaves almost no time for a real life of my own, but mostly because his stories have all the sex and violence a guy could ask for. And he’s a pretty good storyteller. Now, I’ll get out of the way and let him tell this one in his own words:

  I was in a tavern in Vienna having dinner. I don’t remember the exact year, certainly before the seventeenth century, sometime around fifteen eighty or so. I’d have to look it up on my phone to be sure. I do remember the plague in Vienna, which was later in the following century. When you’ve been around as long as I have, you figure out that plagues and wars are pretty good historical placemarks if you’re ever at a loss. Consider that a free tip if you find yourself immortal.

  I do remember what I was eating: ox knuckle. I had smelled it when I walked in, it was simmering in a large pot for most of the day along with some other meaty odds and ends. I don’t need food, at least as the rest of the animal kingdom understands it, but I’m not made of stone. The smell was all I could think about from the moment I’d walked in, and I’d snagged a knuckle from the pot as soon as I could. I think it’s the mouthfeel—gnawing meat off of a bone satisfies whatever beast I have curled up deep inside me.

  As for my actual sustenance, the customers and staff provided more than enough. It was crowded that night, and I didn’t need to drain any one person very much. A simple touch of hands was all I needed, as the blood aspirated through the skin in a mist too fine for the human eye to discern. I had become more skilled with my powers by this point and could feed without hurting or killing if I chose. Just a silent transaction from them to me without pain or any other side effects, other than some dizziness in some cases. In fact, the small amount of blood loss would help most of them get drunk that much faster, so you could say I was doing a public service.

  Don’t get me wrong, though. I wasn’t sparing them out of some altruistic sense of idealism, I had no love for anyone in attendance that
night. Compassion was a trick I had yet to master. If I had had the opportunity and even the flimsiest reason, I would have torn any one of them open just to see what they looked like inside. I didn’t for the simple reason of self-preservation. These people didn’t have the skepticism of those who live today, the devil was a very real thing to them. If they knew that he walked among them, they would do whatever they could to defend themselves. I’m formidable, but not omnipotent. A pitchfork-wielding mob with numbers on its side and enough motivation could really ruin my week.

  I was on my fourth tankard of ale when my keen senses detected that my bladder had reached its maximum capacity. I stumbled out of my seat and headed out the back door, making my way to the cess pit.

  The cess pit is exactly as pleasant as it sounds. A simple trench dug into the ground and filled with every form of refuse imaginable, but mostly human waste. The smell is overpowering, the combined stench of shit, piss, and random garbage accented with the occasional dead body, usually animal, but sometimes human. It’s like a physical thing, assaulting the olfactory senses like a hard slap to the face. Often, rats could be seen skittering across the surface in search of food. It’s not hard to see why it’s a detail left out of most historical romance novels.

  I had finished relieving myself and was about to return to the night’s revelry when I heard some commotion from a nearby alleyway: scuffling and rough male voices. I’ve always been curious by nature, so I went to investigate and arrived just in time to see two men accosting a young girl. I couldn’t determine her exact age, but she couldn’t have been more than eighteen. Maybe twenty at the most. Things did not appear to be going well for her. One of the men had her arms pinned behind her back while the other was going to work on her bodice, tearing it open in one brutish motion.

  Both men were drunk and dressed as though they belonged in the cesspit themselves. Dirty and hirsute, they had the thick, powerful build of men who spent their days doing heavy labor. Strands of matted hair, long and unwashed, stuck to their faces and backs like black seaweed. The man doing the bodice ripping had his pants around his ankles. He fondled her breast with a dirty hand while his friend looked on, grinning as he no doubt waited for his turn.

  As I said earlier, at that point I lacked the compassion and sense of justice that I have today, and I suppose I could have moved on, left well enough alone. Something, however, stopped me from turning my back. Even today I couldn’t tell you exactly what it was. Perhaps that it didn’t seem like a fair fight, two unwashed brutes against a fair damsel. Honestly, I can’t think of a better reason, so let’s just say that I was channeling my inner superhero that night.

  I approached the pantsless man and put a hand on his shoulder. I’d like to think that I said something funny in that moment, a witty one-liner, but I don’t think I did. Back then I was all business. I didn’t want to draw a crowd, so I did the simplest thing, which was to snap his scapula and drive it through his lung. He didn’t even have a chance to turn around before his left arm went limp and he fell, choking and sputtering blood as he did.

  The man holding the woman didn’t know what to think. His eyes were wide and darted between me and his now dead compatriot. I got the feeling that the two of them didn’t lose many fights, so this would have been a novel experience for him.

  Shifting his grip on the woman, he grabbed her by the neck. It was a position I knew well, an easy way to snap the upper vertebrae. Death would be instantaneous.

  “Stay away from me, demon, or I snap her neck,” he said, his voice slurred.

  He’d moved a little ways away, perhaps instinct told him how much of a threat I presented, so he went slightly outside of my ideal effective range. I could still kill him, of course, but it wouldn’t be as decisive as I would have liked. Not to mention the risk of a struggle, perhaps he’d cry out, attracting some samaritans passing by. He would also have had a chance to kill the girl, thus negating the whole point of the exercise.

  I don’t like to lose, but I had had a few drinks myself, so my strategic planning skills might not have been at their peak. It didn’t matter in the end, however, as the girl looked at me and smiled, then reached down for the man’s crotch.

  With a strength for which I wouldn’t have credited her, she gripped the man’s genital region and pulled upwards. I could smell the blood in the air and surmised she had dealt some serious damage to his manhood. He released the girl immediately, having been given a much more pressing set of problems.

  Returning the woman’s smile, I moved in and finished the wretch off with a throat punch. His eyes went wide, and he made a faint wheeze as he fell to the ground, dying before he got there.

  “Thank you, Sir, for coming to my rescue,” the woman said, locking her eyes to mine. There was gratitude in her voice, but I got the sense that not all of it was for the assist I’d just given her. A woman’s sexual interest is something that I’d learned to recognize early on, and this chick was giving it out in dollops.

  “Oh,” she said, looking down suddenly at her hand. I followed her gaze and was amazed to see the lump of bloody cloth and flesh that she was holding. It seemed she had actually torn her assailant’s genitals clean off of his body. She regarded the trophy with a remote shrug and dropped it to the cobblestone floor of the alley, kicking it aside.

  Even factoring for adrenaline, tearing a man’s junk from his body was quite a feat. I reckoned that this girl must have been a little more than she appeared. Still, it was none of my business, so I let the question lie for the moment. “You’re welcome,” I said. ”Isn’t this a late hour for you to be out alone?”

  Her smile, playful and authentic, appeared again. “Oh… I’m not alone…”

  As if waiting for their cue, two men, much larger than her attackers, emerged from the darkness behind her. They were well dressed, in bespoke suits that, despite their expert cut, couldn’t hide the heavy muscle beneath. They moved in to stand behind her, one on either side, and regarded me with a profound lack of emotion.

  This raised so many questions. Clearly, the men were in her employ and had been there the whole time, just...what? Watching their boss get sexually assaulted in an alley? What was going on here?

  The woman gestured to the men. “These are my manservants, Ficko and Andras.”

  “Gents.” I tipped an imaginary hat to the men, who reacted in much the same way as statues might in that situation.

  “Since you have saved me,” she continued, “ I would like to offer you a bed for the evening.”

  I know what you’re thinking, this situation was already weird and getting weirder by the second. No way should I take her up on this offer. And I have to admit that I had my concerns as well, but I should remind you that the sex vibe I was getting was still very much present, and she was one of the most beautiful girls I’d seen in a literal lifetime. She seemed sincere enough, and if things got hairy, I always had my powers to fall back on. And so, my better judgement overruled, I gave a smile and a nod.

  “Thank you,” I said. “I think your accommodations will be far superior to the hay pile in the barn.”

  She smiled and hooked her arm in mine.

  As we walked down the alley, the world’s worst bodyguards trailing a few steps behind, we began to get closer to the lamplight from the street. Now I was finally able to take note of her clothing. Unlike most people of the time, whose garments were dirty and mended to the point where they were almost entirely comprised of patches, her bodice and dress were of high quality, well maintained, and looked practically new, apart from the blood stains. All signs of money, at the very least, maybe even nobility. It made her presence in the alley all the more confusing. Women of high breeding simply didn’t do stuff like that.

  “Here is my carriage.”

  We’d arrived at the street, and I found myself standing in front of one of the most magnificent machines I’d ever seen. Gracefully conceived, it was constructed from intricately carved wood, covered in gold leaf, with frescoe
s painted on the doors. It was the first time that I’d ever seen one, and I don’t mind telling you the experience turned me into a bit of a yokel, eyes wide, jaw on the ground. The industrial revolution was still hundreds of years away, but man never ceased to impress with his ability to innovate.

  The ride itself was rough, shock absorbers were still a long ways off, so we were jostled from one side to the other as we navigated the narrow, cobblestone streets. It didn’t bother me too much, as I was still agog at the novel experience of riding in a carriage. Thinking back, the experience was most likely where my love of cars began.

  “Cool, a carriage ride!” I said, interrupting Joe. “I hate to cut you off, but I have to hit the head.”

  “Let it flow, bro,” said Joe. “Oh, and grab another six pack on your way back.”

  “Will do.”

  I relieved myself, giving silent thanks that I hadn’t been born in the age of cess pits. Flushing, indoor plumbing is the only way I can roll. I grabbed the beers and headed back to the living room. I found Joe leaning back, lost in thought.

  “That girl sounds like a piece of work,” I said, sitting down and cracking a new beer. “Was she good looking? Does the story get any more… interesting?” I winked at Joe.

  “Oh, yeah,” Joe replied, popping the top on one of his own. “Crazy hot, and also totally crazy.”

  I shrugged. “I guess some things never change.”

  Joe chugged about half of his beer, then waded back into his story.

  As we bounced around the lush confines of the carriage, I had a chance to study the girl a little more closely. Her nose was perfect, ruler straight with a slight upturn. She had brown hair, almost black, that ignited in subtle streaks of red where the lamplight struck it from outside. Now getting a better look at her outfit, I could see the fine stitching and flawless workmanship. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind; she was either an aristocrat, or had killed one and stolen her clothes. Either way, it was working for her. She carried herself with the poise and confidence of noble blood, and I found I was a little in awe of her, despite myself.