Vile Things: Extreme Deviations of Horror

by et al. Ramsey Campbell

  Jarny grinned at him, corpse-slime running from his mouth, a flap of stringy tissue hanging from his jaws. “Je mange la chair des cadavers!” he told him.

  His fingers curled into malicious claws, he jumped up with a demented, gibbering shriek. But the attendant was a stout, powerful man. He snatched up the forgotten prybar and put it to use. As Jarny raged and howled, the prybar rose and fell, swung by a man whose soul was sickened by what he saw. It shattered Jarny’s left arm, cleaved open his head, smashed-in his ribs. He hit the floor and the attendant, worked up into a maniacal hatred, continued to swing his weapon. Finally, panting and dizzy, he looked down at the ghoul. He was still alive, eyes wide and glassy and aware, but he was broken, bleeding, his neck snapped and his body splayed limply. Blood was running freely from all orifices.

  As the bar came up for the death-blow, Jarny smiled with red-stained teeth, saying, “Thank God, Thank God …”

  Francois Jarny no longer moved.

  Jarny was not dead.

  He only waited while the worms attempted to put him back together again. But his wounds were massive, grievous, it would take many days and they could not bear the idea of starving all that time.

  At midnight the next evening, a new attendant came on shift. He saw to all the trifling tasks his job entailed. When he was finished, and quite alone, he peeked in the drawers at the cold cuts, looking for anything that might be of use. When he reached Jarny’s and looked upon that white grinning face, he gasped.

  Jarny saw him through filmed eyes. That long cadaveric face fanning out with deep-set lines, the narrow discolored teeth, those dead gray eyes. He knew this man, God yes, how he knew this man. He could almost smell the powder and battlefield stench, feel the cold and nits biting him.

  “Oh, ho, ho,” said Boulille, “friend Jarny, good friend Francois Jarny. So you are the ghoul of the cemeteries, eh? Tsk, tsk, my old friend. What a state you are in.”

  Jarny did not speak, but inside his head he spoke to the maggots: Look at

  him! He’s fat and healthy and cunning! I’m ruined, but he is perfect … for a host.

  Yes, they said with great breathless fervor. Yes …

  Happily, Jarny waited. He did not wait long. Alone, ever obscene and deranged, Boulille thought he would sample a scrap of meat from his old compatriot of the Napoleonic Wars. As he sank in the knife, Jarny sprang up with the last drop of vitality available, seizing Boulille by throat. Oh, but how Boulille fought! He jumped away, dragging Jarny right from his berth. He fought, he tore, but Jarny would not release him. They fell to the floor in a heap, Jarny on top. And then, black toxins running from Jarny’s flesh and dripping from his nostrils and ears, a heaving muscular convulsion swept through him and he voided what was inside. He vomited a foamy peristaltic river of slime and worms, hundreds and thousands of worms that kept pouring out in moist tangles with each convulsion. They were fat and white and glistening. They covered Boulille’s screaming face and thrashing body.

  But not for long.

  They entered him. Through his mouth and nose and ears, through tiny cuts and abrasions. They wriggled up his ass and worked their way down the head of his penis. Wherever there was an opening, they swarmed. And many of them just tunneled straight in, melting into his flesh until he was no longer Henri Boulille, craven cannibal, but merely a host for something ancient, evil, and undying.

  Jarny hit the floor, quite dead.

  Boulille collapsed beside him.

  By the next evening, following a cursory examination, Boulille was placed in an unused drawer. The maggots gave him the semblance of death for it suited their purposes. And now, he could begin his new life amongst the sepulchers and mortuaries and graveyard damps.

  Boulille did not lose consciousness.

  He laid there, praying for the darkness, for release. But it was far too late for that. Infested by the graveworms, globby masses of eggs laid in the hot charnel earth of his flesh, he was forever theirs now. When they hatched, the new generation got right down to work, setting things to right.

  The next night, Boulille sat up and walked. He left the morgue in search of a fresh grave. But not too fresh of one as he would soon discover.

  And this, then, was the final vengeance of Francois Jarny.

  Going Green

  Stefan Pearson

  * * *

  THE NIGHT AFTER THE FUNERAL was muggy and moonless, purple black clouds hanging in the night sky like ripe Merlot. Simon West stole from the house, spade and Maglite in hand. He’d insisted that the fully biodegradable metal-free coffin was buried in no more than a few feet of earth; “If we bury her any deeper her nutrients won’t reach the topsoil.” Germaine had resisted of course, but caved eventually—she knew he knew best. Truth was he just didn’t fancy digging and refilling a six foot hole.

  Luckily the ground was loose and hadn’t begun to settle. Simon glanced back to the converted farm house—all was still and his no night-lights policy for the kids’ bedrooms meant that the only glimmer came from the winking burglar alarm mounted high on the wall. The pale blades of the wind turbine turned sluggishly on the roof. It was a sultry night and before long his shirt clung to his back, a lock of lank hair plastering itself across his forehead.

  After what felt like an age the spade finally thunked off wood. A muffled groan escaped from the half-buried coffin. On hands and knees, Simon clawed the remaining dirt aside and prised away the lid, bringing his small torch to bear. The ex-mother-in-law growled, groaned and gnashed her false teeth at him, teeth that worked themselves loose and slid across her face on a thick strand of paste-like saliva. He stifled a disgusted shiver.

  Dragging Margaret across the lawn was a pain, her twig-like limbs squirming from his grip. The only way he could get a proper purchase was to wedge his fingers into her bones. If he held her skin she just slid from his grasp.

  Back in the lab he tossed the old woman onto the table and strapped her down. He’d have preferred to administer his serum before she was buried, but knew from bitter experience that he had a window of hours at best in which to inject the life restoring elixir. It just didn’t seem to work if the body was any older. His recently deceased mother-in-law groaned and gnashed gummily.

  “I wouldn’t moan just yet Margaret,” he quipped, splashing his face in the sink and pulling a beer from the mini-fridge. She fixed him with milky yellowed eyes and hissed, working her toothless jaw. “I’d reserve my moaning until I’d been on this for a week.” He strolled over to the recently wall-mounted waterwheel, cracked open his can, and patted the heavy wooden frame. Margaret growled. Rebuilding the waterwheel in the basement had been a stroke of genius. The extortionate bloody thing had failed magnificently in the property’s stream, barely moving in the turgid current. Turned out some bastard farmer had diverted the flow further up the valley. The house was struggling to generate enough power and the solar panels and wind turbine were disappointingly feeble, even if they looked the part. Free electricity didn’t come cheap.

  Margaret was ominously silent as he fastened her into the treadmill, but then he had ripped her larynx out before securing her to the waterwheel. Her open throat hissed, popped and gurgled, but it was infinitely better than that incessant moaning. He’d had enough of that when she was alive. He stood in front of her and contemplated his handy-work. She lumbered towards him. The wheel began to turn, its complex gears whirring into life. Simon tapped the side of the generator. A definite current! The needle bobbed, Margaret channelling her stumbling anger into readily stored free kilowatts.

  “Paying your way at last you old bitch,” he grinned, finishing his can and tossing it to the floor. Simon flicked off the light and locked the cellar behind him.

  In the best scientific tradition, Simon West had stumbled across a serum that effected the reanimation of necrotic tissue pretty much by accident. He’d been working on a cure for baldness at the time, a pet project since his hairline had begun creeping inexorably across his skull. Simon’s ser
um contained a particularly virile bacterium that he’d isolated from the stomach of a dead cat. The agent underwent radical physical changes immediately after the host’s death, taking on an almost regenerative role, a last ditch attempt to adapt to its unliving environment. West had introduced the bacterium into an artificial blood plasma serum. The idea was you pasted the stuff on your head and it brought dead hair follicles back to life. In hindsight he was glad he hadn’t road tested it on himself, although it could be argued testing it on the deceased Mr Frisky had been ill conceived. Particularly as the once dead cat had hopped off the slab and dragged a coil of its guts across the room, mewling at his feet. The thing rubbed a bloodied cheek against his trouser leg. A hanging eyeball stuck to his cords. Simon had stuffed the ex-pet into a heavy sack and stashed it in the corner of the cellar, scrubbed his trousers and contemplated his discovery.

  “You haven’t seen Mr Frisky have you Dad?” Peter asked. “No, sorry son. When did you last see him?”

  “A few days ago. Mum and Sammy haven’t seen him either.”

  “He’s probably off prowling around the woods. He was a house cat. Probably got a lot of catty catching up to do—eating voles, fighting, peeing in the garden. I’m sure he’ll be back soon.”

  “Mr Frisky wouldn’t eat a vole!” his youngest protested, running from the kitchen.

  “And the little bastard won’t be peeing in my leeks anymore either,” Simon muttered.

  He finished his breakfast and took a stroll around the farm. It was another dull, languid day, grey clouds ambling across the sky directionless and obtuse. The solar panels had given next to fuck all juice and there was barely a breath of wind either. He glanced up at the wind turbine to see a crow sitting nonchalantly on one of its immobile blades. He’d have thrown a stone if he didn’t know that, sod’s law, he’d probably hit the blade and break it.

  It seemed like the ennui had spread to his writing too. This late in the morning he should really be in the cellar and cracking on with his self help opus, Green not mean, which he was sure was going to be a big hit. He billed it as the ultimate guide to living an ethically and ecologically sound life without compromising on those essential creature comforts, and felt like he’d really caught the zeitgeist. People wanted to be green, of course, but they wanted wi-fi, plasma screens and air-conditioned cars too. And he reasoned they could have both with the right economic management. He called his system Ecolonomics. A sound bite he felt sure the reviewers would latch on to. But he just wasn’t getting anywhere. Even more annoying, it seemed that Margaret wouldn’t turn the treadmill unless he was in the room with her. In fact, it seemed like the old witch wanted to attack him. Fair enough, he wasn’t exactly her biggest fan, but it was a drag sitting there in the cellar listening to her gurgle while he tried to find his creative mojo again. He’d hooked up the Mac’s speakers and played Haydn to drown her out, but it never entirely masked it. Still, at least it meant the house was generating some power. In fact, the farm’s electricity was coming almost exclusively from Margaret’s frenzied stumbling so the more time he spent in there the better.

  Back in the house, he took his keys from his trousers and unlocked the cellar. Once he was sure the door was locked behind him he flicked on the light. Margaret’s creme egg eyes fixed on him, her arms stretched out, and the gurgling began. Seconds later the wheel was in motion.

  “Hi honey, I’m home,” he quipped. He turned on the CD player and sat in front of the screen, the little vertical cursor winking needily. He watched it for a while, then spun slowly in his chair. Margaret pulled on her restraints. He stared at her for a moment, sighed, picked up the catapult, selected a stone from the tub of gravel on his desk and fired it at her. The corpse gave a start as the projectile thwacked off its forehead, a forehead (and face) that was already peppered with tiny black welts and contusions.

  “That’s black again,” he said. Margaret wheezed. He selected another stone. The second lodged in the ruin of her throat, a thick gloop of blood dribbling down her neck. “That’s red number 3!” he intoned in what he thought was a northern accent. “That’s the dead granny on a treadmill. None darts player next.” He fired again. The third stone burst one of her eyes and milky white fluid slid torpidly across her cheek. “It’s a bull’s-eye! And Bully’s special prize is! Another magic tree!” He hung the air freshener around her neck, clapping his hands. He felt like Jimmy Savile. The corpse suddenly lunged for him taking him unawares. He stumbled back, losing his footing and grabbing for the waterwheel. The cadaver’s claws were on him in a flash, tearing at his clothes, Margaret’s toothless jaw gumming at him. He staggered quickly away cursing and wiping dead spittle from his shirt. She’d torn the damn thing and there were livid red scratch marks on his arm. He rinsed his wound under the tap, cursing and rubbing on some Savlon. He sniffed tentatively at his sleeve. It stunk. In fact she was pretty high in general, even if she did look like some un-dead Mr-T wannabe. She wore a heavy necklace of air fresheners, and stick-ups were stuck liberally to her. He gave her a blast of Oust for good measure.

  Simon wasn’t sure what had woken him: a noise, a full bladder, a bad dream? He slid his legs out of the bed and nudged into his slippers. The house was dark, a faint grey rectangle marking out the bedroom window. He tugged on his dressing gown. His throat was dry as shale and his head pounded, like the onset of fever. Maybe he was coming down with something? He had been pushing himself a bit hard lately. A glass of fresh orange and a Paracetomol would sort him out. He was halfway to the kitchen when he noticed that the door to the cellar was hanging loosely open. A feeble light illuminated the wall and top of the stone steps—had he left his desk light on down there? The least of his worries. His heart plummeted. “Fuck!” How the hell had Margaret managed to escape her bonds and unlock the door from inside? He scanned quickly around the hallway, kitchen, living room—a standby light winking red. He’d have to pull the kids up about that tomorrow—and the dining room. Nothing. Back in the hall his eyes snagged on the leathery cylinder of his golf bag. He felt around for his trusty 7 iron. Scared as he was, facing the undead Margaret was infinitely preferable to explaining to his family why their dead gran was wandering about the house.

  Simon edged towards the open door, teasing it a little wider and placing his foot on the first step. The house was black, cold and silent as the tomb. He was almost half way down the stairs when there was a horrific, blood-curdling hiss from below. A black shape streaked past him brushing wetly between his legs. Quick as a flash, he stepped smartly on the black coil slithering up the steps in Mr Frisky’s wake feeling a sudden jerk. The dead cat gurgled hideously. Stooping quickly he grabbed the beast’s sticky innards and dragged it back towards him. The cat struggled, digging its rotten claws into the floor boards. He had to loop the stuff around his fist to stop the thing writhing free, a macabre tug of war. It came in range and he grabbed the cat by the neck, smacking it smartly on the back of the head. The club embedded itself in its skull with a sickening, but satisfyingly wet, crunch. “That’s two you little bastard,” he hissed, “don’t think you’re getting another seven.” He twisted Mr Frisky hard in his hands, breaking its spine. Even if the little fucker was resurrected again, it wouldn’t be going anywhere.

  He closed the door behind him and hurried down the remaining steps. That was when he saw the empty collar hanging limply from the waterwheel’s motionless frame. His heart beat hard against his dressing gown. He gripped the club, tossed the cat to the ground and steeled himself for the attack, eyes darting around the cluttered cellar space for his adversary. A groan from behind the table. He crept slowly forward, club raised above his head, and leapt around the corner, stopping himself short before he dashed his son’s brains out.

  “Peter!” he hissed, dropping the club and taking the boy’s head in his hands. Peter was barely conscious and had a large bloody scratch on his chest. An empty sack—the one Mr Frisky had been in—lay by his side and Simon’s cellar keys were on the floor a
t the boy’s feet. He wiped granny dribble from his son’s hair and face and stuffed the keys into his pyjama pocket at exactly the same time as Margaret’s taloned claws wrapped around his throat. He fell forward, gurgling, barely managing to swerve aside before he crushed the boy. The ex-mother-in-law was on him in an instant, her rotten mouth straining for this throat. Simon twisted desperately trying to dislodge the thing but couldn’t get a good grip. A ragged sliver of flesh fell from her rotting throat and an Airwick stick-up came away in his grasping hands. He managed to get a slippered foot under her midriff and propelled her backwards as hard as he could. She hit the ground with a nasty crunch, but was quickly on her feet again. A lump of shiny white plastic protruded from the torn flesh of her hip. The corpse lumbered forward and Simon grabbed for the 7 iron, bringing it smartly down on top of her head. Margaret tottered for a moment, sighed one last time, and crumpled to the ground. Stepping over the corpse, he placed a foot on her back and tugged the golf club free. He hit her again just to be sure.

  Peter was regaining conscious. Simon wrapped the boy quickly in his dressing gown and dressed his wound in the sink. He found a jar of chloroform, tipped some onto a rag and held it over Peter’s nose. The boy passed out again. Simon carried him gently up stairs and put him back to bed.

  Simon sat in front of the Mac, head in his hands, desperately trying to stay awake. Not only was he utterly exhausted, but his head still pounded and he had an awful case of the shakes. In the bathroom mirror this morning his eyes had looked horrible, pallid and bloodshot. But no wonder. When he should have been asleep he was up all night dismembering Margaret and Mr Frisky. He’d heaped the bits into his wheelbarrow and trudged through the garden to the pig pen at the back of the house, where Pinky and Perky had made short work of them.