Then I feel it. The tug. The life force is traveling with breakneck speed. I follow as it makes its circuit. I will have to be precise and time it just so.
I grab the blade with my free hand, follow the soul’s course with the magnet: down the throat…across the sternum…down the left leg. I wait for it to reach the boy’s foot. A quick hack at the toes and immortality will be mine. (After a simple distillation, of course.)
I will take from the City as it has taken from me. My empty eye socket twitches.
Now! Now! Now! I bring down the blade and slice through the fat tootsies. They are tougher than I expect. But then I feel the blade grab the flesh and I slide it farther down and across. The toes tumble to the ground like fat sausage links.
A bruised-purple mist the size of my fist rises from the butchered foot and hovers in the air just long enough for me to capture it in a vial. I watch the soul swirl and surge in its glass prison like smoke from a pyre. I nearly cry out in joy. What a clever one I am, I think. I have outsmarted the City.
Then I notice the silence. It is terrible and thick. The boy did not scream out in agony.
The heat of fear burns inside me. I look up and the boy is grinning. He opens his mouth.
Then I see it: the tongue, forked and black. His neck and arms and legs extend like taffy. He breaks free from his constraints and towers over me, his eyes like jellied fire. I fall back on my rump.
“You were correct,” the child-thing says. “I do understand now.”
The toes! I do not see them. My chest tightens. Where are the toes? Then I hear them, scraping against the floor, like broken glass against stone. They clatter toward me, their yellowed toenails as sharp and long as rat teeth.
“The soulless indeed go to hell,” the now-demonic child purrs, not unlike a rattlesnake. “I welcome you.”
Yes, I think madly, the Great Work has been accomplished, and suddenly my mouth fills with warm, coppery blood.
Though my tongue has been excised, I can still hear myself screaming. It is the only thing I can hear. It is the only thing I will ever hear again, I realize. Long after the terrible City crumbles to ash.
She Will Be Home for Christmas
(Originally published in At Year’s End: SFF Holiday Stories)
My family has a Christmas tradition: Every year, they kill my mom. It’s right up there with decorating the tree and exchanging gifts. Last year, my big brother Seth killed her by jamming a carving knife—the one we were going to use for the ham—into her right eye. The goopy sound it made entering her head still gives me the chills.
I’m carrying a wrapped gift down the stairs when Seth says, “Fran, why haven’t you ever killed Mom on Christmas? Are you squeamish?”
I’ve killed plenty of the undead since they began rising from their graves. Sometimes you just have to do it. But a lot of the time I feel sorry for them. I mean, they’re mostly harmless, unless you let them get too close and they bite you.
“Leave your sister alone,” my dad says as he wraps garland around the tree. “She’s only fourteen; she doesn’t have to kill anyone on Christmas.”
Dad tries to keep the holiday traditions going. He says if we don’t we’ll fall into savagery. It’s perfectly okay to kill Mom, but if we don’t sing carols we’re savages? He’s such a hypocrite.
“I shouldn’t have to kill anyone either,” Seth says, “but that’s what we have to do in the zombie fucking apocalypse, right? She should toughen up.”
They’re not really zombies, though. More like solid ghosts. A zombie you can kill. Ghosts keep coming back, no matter what you do to them. Plus, it’s not much of an apocalypse. We still have power and supermarkets and stuff. You just have to be careful now; like, you need to carry a weapon when you’re outside and you don’t want to be caught in the woods or around a cemetery at night.
“Maybe we shouldn’t kill her,” I say. “Maybe we should let her enjoy the holiday like the rest of us. Ever think about that? Ever wonder why she keeps coming back on Christmas?” I place the gift beside the tree, away from the other boxes, so I can grab it quickly. I won’t have much time. I found it just lying against a tree on my way home from school. As soon as I saw it—so shiny—I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it.
“Easy for you to say,” Seth says. “She doesn’t try to eat you. God, I hate Christmas.” God, I hate my brother. He downs the rest of his rum-spiked eggnog.
He’s right, though. Mom never tries to eat me. I was always her favorite.
Mama died the first time ten years ago on Christmas. She tripped over one of Seth’s gifts—I think it was a skateboard—and cracked her head on the edge of the glass coffee table. A year later, she returned. So did a bunch of other ghost-zombies. No one knows why really. Some think it’s a virus; others say it’s a punishment from God or a sign of the End Times. I don’t care. I’m just happy that Mama comes back. Seth and Dad don’t feel the same way. They think she’s dangerous, they say she’s just a dead thing.
The first time Mama came back Dad killed her with a snow globe. He didn’t even try to talk to her. I was so mad. I prayed and prayed for her to come back. And she did. But each time they killed her. Over the years, they’ve burned her, sunk her in the river, hacked her into little pieces. They even tried shooting her in the head. But no matter what they did, every December 25th, Mom returned. I think it’s because she wants the family to be together for Christmas. Life has never been the same without her.
The bell Dad set up outside jingles.
Mom’s here!
I hear her labored footsteps thump, thump on the kitchen floor and I run for Mama’s gift.
Dad and Seth have their backs to me as they watch her lurching toward them. Black skin is peeling off her face in ragged sheets. Her right eye is covered in a milky white film. She lets out a soft moan.
For a moment I think maybe I won’t give Mom my gift. I don’t know if I have the nerve.
Then I see Seth holding a fireplace poker at this side and Dad with a carving knife. My fear disappears and is replaced by something else.
I tear open the gift and I say, “Merry Christmas, Mama!” Then I bury the axe in Dad’s skull. Seth is slow to turn. Probably from all the eggnog. I have enough time to wrench out the axe and whack him in the neck. It felt better than it should have. After all, he did kill Mama the first time with his stupid skateboard—which Daddy bought for the careless brat.
It turns out to be an okay Christmas, after all. Mom doesn’t eat me. (I knew I was her favorite.) Neither do Seth or Dad. We’re a family again. It’s like Christmas used to be. The whole family together. The singing is terrible, though. We’ll have to work on that.
The Grimlorn Under the Mountain
(Originally published in Weirdbook #31)
They were halfway up the mountain when Max fell into the yawning cave mouth.
He had been resting on a boulder as Richard went off to relieve himself. Max was happy for the break. Richard had been practically racing up the mountain. Max kept telling him to slow down, he was pushing a heart attack. But Richard was being his usual vindictive self. “Maybe if you stopped complaining you’d be able to keep up, princess,” he would say, and run ahead.
Max knew saying yes to the “excursion” was a bad idea. But his brother was adamant and Max still felt guilty about that stupid loan.
He was ready to head back down the mountain, call it a day, when Richard returned from his bathroom break.
Max barely had time to stand before Richard charged and drove his shoulder into Max’s midsection. Max stumbled back three steps, and then he went down. He expected to land on the ground, but instead he fell through the air.
Time froze. The world went silent.
Max must have cartwheeled, because he landed on his belly, hitting the water with a flat smack. It felt like he’d been whacked with a sledgehammer.
Somehow he fought his way back to the surface. It took a long moment before he caught his breath, looked up, a
nd saw Richard leaning over a rough circular opening in the chamber’s ceiling, like the oculus in a cathedral, at least thirty feet above him.
“Don’t worry, Maxwell!” Richard’s voice boomed through the chamber. “You’ll be fine. You’re always fine.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Max shouted. “You’ve got to get help, Richard! You’ve got to call someone!”
“Sorry, princess! It’s a done deal.” Richard shrugged—and then the hole closed like a pair of jaws.
Max was entombed in darkness. He screamed, “Richard! Richard! This isn’t funny!” His voice thundered and rolled off into the cave’s depths.
Did Richard just try to kill him? He was always a bit sadistic—that’s how big brothers are made—but this was madness. Let’s go for a nice excursion in nature like when we were kids, he said. Real nice.
Max treaded in the water, hoping Richard would appear above him, laugh, and throw down a rope. Hey, little bro, just kidding, ha-ha-ha. But then Max recalled Richard’s smug expression when he charged and that casual shrug just before the cave mouth closed.
He began to swim.
He had traveled about twenty yards when he heard a voice calling his name.
“Max-well… Max-well…”
A finger of cold slid down his back.
“Max-well…”
The voice creaked like the opening of an ancient crypt door. It was as rough as glass scraped against stone, but Max was sure it was coming from a woman.
His hand landed on a narrow ledge just above the water line. His foot slipped off the slick rock four times before he was finally able to gain purchase and climb out of the water.
He stood against the rock wall, trembling. The sepulchral voice came again.
“Max-welllllll…”
He thought of answering, but his voice stuck in his throat. He reached for the cellphone in his back pocket. It wasn’t there. It was most likely sitting at the bottom of the lake. He had a penlight attached to his keychain in his front pocket. That was still there—but it wouldn’t light.
He crept forward, feeling along the rough wall, his heart thudding in his chest.
He wondered how the voice knew his name, but then he realized that Richard had shouted it before the cave mouth closed. Don’t worry, Maxwell! You’ll be fine. You’re always fine. Those were their father’s words. But they were always directed at Richard. The last time the old man told Richard he’d be fine was about a month ago, when he asked his father for a seven-thousand-dollar loan. Seems Richard, the big-shot lawyer, had gambling debts. It didn’t help matters that the old man gave Max fifteen grand to open a bar just a year ago. “You’re not Max,” his father told Richard. “You’re a hard worker. You don’t need help. You’ll be fine. End of discussion.”
It wasn’t the first time his father had said that, but it still stung. He guessed he deserved it. The bar closed in seven months. He should have known he wasn’t cut out for entrepreneurship, or bars. Hell, he barely went to any before owning one. Richard took particular glee in his failure. Obviously his glee wasn’t enough.
Max came to a passage. He stopped and removed the battery to the penlight, shook out the water, did his best to dry its insides. He put the battery back, and after a few attempts it emitted a weak brownish-yellow light.
The passage was narrow. Stalactites hung just above his head like demonic teeth. The ground was smooth and sloped slightly downward. He hesitated. Stumbling around a dark cave wasn’t a great idea, unless you wanted to break your neck. The voice came again—Max-well, Max-well, Max-well—like the monotonous tolling of a church bell. There was something sad and horribly broken in that voice. He had to move.
To keep his mind off the voice as he crept through the cave system, he thought of all the unpleasant things he was going to do to Richard. Breaking his fucking nose was high up on the list.
When the penlight died, Max took the opportunity to rest against a tall, thick column of stone. He had removed his wet shirt, rung it out, and done his best to dry it as he walked. Now he laid it out on a rock beside him. He removed his shoes and socks. His pants were still damp, but he left them on. He didn’t like the idea of sitting naked in the dark.
The voice had disappeared soon after he entered the passage, but that made him feel only more uneasy. He was exhausted and terrified. He closed his eyes, rubbed his sore belly, and fought back tears. “You’re going to be fine, Max,” he whispered to himself, and laughed bitterly.
He didn’t know how long he had been asleep, but when he opened his eyes he saw a dim light flickering to his left.
He got dressed and headed toward it. The light was coming from a slit in the rock wall. With a bit of effort, he was able to squeeze through the opening.
He stood on a narrow ledge that ringed a chamber that was as long as two football fields and almost as deep. Torches were scattered throughout the room, but the darkness was still winning the war. Thick, black shadows pooled around stalagmites clustered in the center of the chamber. They rose up, crooked and lumpy, disappearing into the darkness. The rest of the room was filled with boulders and mounds covered in a wet, pale-pink sheen that reminded Max of a movie alien’s skin.
To his right, a steep slope led to the chamber floor.
When he was midway down it, a small figure slid out from behind one of the stalagmites.
He froze.
Torchlight danced over the creature’s—the woman’s?—shriveled and sunken face. Her hair, white as chalk, hung stiffly to the ground. Thin black veins stood out against her pale skin like cracks in marble.
“Max-well, you are finally here,” the thing said in that horror-show voice he had heard earlier. She smiled to reveal small, jagged teeth. “Come closer, and let her see you better. The Grimlorn is happy now.” She beckoned him with her hand.
He didn’t move.
“Are you alone here?” he asked, his voice quavering. “Are there any others?”
Max looked around. Broken bowls and dishes, strips of cloth, and what looked like cheap jewelry littered the ground. He didn’t see anyone else, but that didn’t mean they weren’t lurking in the shadows.
“There is only the Grimlorn. She is alone. For so long.”
“Is that you? Are you the Grimlorn?”
“The Grimlorn Under the Mountain,” she said, as if it were common knowledge. She stepped forward, squinted. “You are a handsome one, aren’t you? What a pretty, pretty boy. Come, sit down.”
Max thought of bolting back up the slope. But his penlight was dead and he knew the chances of finding a way out in the dark were slim. Reluctantly he made his way down to the chamber floor and sat on a flat boulder as far away from the Grimlorn as possible. He smelled meat boiling and then he noticed a bubbling pot behind the strange woman.
“You must be hungry,” she said.
She squatted, reached under her dress, which was a patchwork of filthy and torn cloth that hung past her feet, and pulled out a small wooden bowl. She hobbled over to the pot and dipped the bowl into it. She returned, holding out the steaming contents.
Max realized, then, he was hungry—but not that hungry.
“Thanks,” he said, “but I don’t plan to stay. How do I get out of here?”
“The Grimlorn made it for you, herself,” she said, and handed him the bowl, which was filled with fat lumps of meat covered in a dark brown goo. He held it in his lap.
The Grimlorn squatted in front of Max. “A pretty thing you are,” she mumbled.
Max noticed a filthy cloth sack hanging from her side. But he didn’t get a good look at it, because she suddenly twisted her body away from him.
She nodded expectantly, reached out toward the bowl. Her fingers were long and withered. Spidery veins crisscrossed her palms. “Eat,” she said.
Max smiled. “Can you help me get back to the surface?”
“Eat. You will enjoy it. It is good. Do not let its appearance fool you. Please. Trust the Grimlorn.” She watched
him with tiny pink eyes.
No matter what she said, there was no way he was going to eat that slop. He saw where the bowl came from. He didn’t want to know where she got the food. The best course of action, Max figured, was to ignore her.
He put the bowl on the ground.
The Grimlorn’s eyes screwed shut and she began to sob. Then she fell onto the ground, rolling back and forth, like a petulant child throwing a fit.
“Are you okay?” Max asked, but the Grimlorn only moaned and writhed in reply.
Max had enough weirdness. He rose, grabbed a torch, and headed up the slope.
“You will be happy here!” the creature wailed as Max slipped out of the chamber. “Please! Trust the Grimlorn!”
Max worked his way through the numerous passages and tunnels and chambers for hours. Several times he fell, scraping his hands and knees. Once he almost tumbled down a narrow chasm. He found columns of stone as tall as skyscrapers and a chamber filled with phosphorescent rock. He tried backtracking to the lake, but he couldn’t find it.
Then, when he was exhausted and sure he was utterly lost, he found himself back in the Grimlorn’s chamber.
She awoke with a start.
“Max-well! Max-well!” she said, sitting up. “You have returned!”
“Is there any way back to the surface?” Max asked, dejected.
“Out?” she said after a long silence, as if the idea were foreign to her. “There is no way out, Max-well. The Grimlorn should know. She has been here a long time.”
“There must be. If we both got in, we can get out.”
The Grimlorn fell silent again, staring into his eyes dreamily, as if she were trying to look into his brain. Suddenly she let out a sharp laugh.
“What?” Max asked, momentarily self-conscious.
“What beautiful teeth you have,” she said. Max rubbed the tops of his thighs. “The Grimlorn has been here a long time. And she has been waiting.”
Madness & Mayhem: 23 Tales of Horror and Humor Page 13