At the Gates of Madness

by Shaun Meeks

  Between Jimmy and the Cadillac, the creatures that had been running towards him were laying scattered on the ground like dead leaves fallen from a tree in autumn. He looked to the car and saw that more were scurrying out of the wrecked car, but they made it less than a few feet before collapsing to the ground, their like reddish eyes rolling back in their heads, their mouths opening and closing like a fish pulled from the water, unable to breath.

  “What the hell.” He whispered to himself and even more of the little creatures joined their fallen brethren on the snow covered ground. He had no idea what was killing them, the light, the cold or the air itself, but he really didn’t care, he didn’t even know what the damn things were. He remembered reading old folklore books of gremlins, nymphs and red caps and thought that these naked little creatures were the stuff of evil fairy tales, Brothers Grimm stories, but like the horror stories he so loved, those things could never be real.

  Yet they were all around him, scattered on the ground, dead or dying, while others continued to feast on the flesh inside the car.

  Jimmy stood up quickly, sliding a little in the snow that was still falling, and ran towards his house, deciding getting home was the best thing to do. He looked over his shoulder as he ran, thinking that at any moment the little monsters would be on his heels, their little pin sharp teeth biting into his Achilles heel to cripple him and when he fell to the ground, they would be on top of him, biting into his flesh, but the streets were still empty.

  He ran quickly up the five stairs of his house to his porch and ran for the door, ready to go in and tell his mom and brother what had just happened. His heart was thumping quick with fear as he touched the cold metal of the door knob, then his heart skipped a beat and felt as though it sank into his stomach. From inside the house he heard a scream, one that was full of terror and pain and he knew right away that it wasn’t good, that it had something to do with the things in the car. Not wanting to, but knowing that he had to, Jimmy walked across the porch and looked through the bay window and into the living room of his house and saw his brother Jeff and his mom and knew why he had heard screaming. They were in the living room, the television on, tuned to some dumb reality show, the living room covered in the same creatures from the car. Not just a few hundred, but an entire lake of them, moving in a fluid motion over his family until, when they shifted enough for Jimmy to see his family, the flesh had been stripped from their faces, blood stained bone showing in its place. More of the little bastards flowed into the room and Jimmy couldn’t look anymore, running away from his house and dead family.

  He moved from house to house, seeing the same thing in each one and knew now why nobody had come out to see the car accident, because they were all being killed too, or were in the midst of becoming food for the damn creatures. It seemed that thousands or millions of the things from hell were in each house and there seemed nowhere for him to run to. He went back over to the car, to the wreck where he had first seen them and tried to wrap his head around it all. He bent down and picked up one of the fallen creatures, looking at its almost scaled skin, the color of green and black rot, the clawed hands and feet, the long pointed nose and large dark red eyes, and wondered where they had come from and what had killed them. The only thing that made sense was that the cold had done it, that there wasn’t enough light if they were sensitive to it, and there was no difference between the air inside the cars or houses and outside, which meant the cold was the only answer of what could have killed the ones that had tried to come after him.

  Jimmy threw the dead thing to the ground and began walking down the street, pulling his coat closer to him as the wind and snow began to pick up. He walked towards Cindy’s house, not sure why since he was pretty sure the same thing would be going on there that seemed to be going on all around him. As he walked, he looked into random houses and was greeted by more of those things moving around inside, pushing themselves against the windows as if they wanted to get outside to where he was. He ignored them as best he could, trying also to ignore the fact that if the cold was the only thing that could kill these things that there were some problems as far as that went. How long could he stay outside in the cold with what he was wearing before he died of exposure? How long would he survive without food? He could have water as long as it kept snowing, or if he went down to the creek and drank the sewer run off, but would he really want to? He also didn’t want to think about what would happen if he did survive and spring came, could the little bastards survive the winter and come after him in the warmer weather. Anyway he looked at it; he was sure he was going to die a virgin, wishing again he had just fucked Crater Face instead of his own hand.

  I Am Fear

  Have you ever had that metallic burning taste in your mouth, the one caused by your stomach acids boiling up your throat because of how much you are filled with fear? You feel as though some unknown stranger or shadowy figure is just two steps behind you, waiting for you to become their victim and bleed life into them. You spend so many hours of your day looking over your shoulder expecting something there, only to see vast darkness and your own stupidity waiting for you.

  I know that feeling, fear, all too well. Nothing in my life has stayed constant, has been by my side all along like fear has. No matter how good or bad things get, rich or poor, in sickness and in health, it is always with me.

  I’ve spent the last thirty years of my life, which just happens to be my entire life, with its cold fingers dug deep into me, letting me know that something is out to get me, that death is just a whispered breath away. It’s hung over me like a shadow causing me to fail at everything I try, making me wonder what the use of doing anything really is.

  So I decided to change things, to take my life back and stop being afraid of everything. I thought that if I was going to be surrounded by fear, that I should embrace it and even become it, to be its messenger instead of its victim. It seemed simple enough for me to do, to become what I was afraid of. I had to take all the teasing words the bullies in school said to me, the hurtful words my mother barked at me, the echoing ring of my dad’s belt as it hit me, take all these things and use them to make a new me.

  I know you want to know how it happened, what I did and I have no problem telling you. That’s why I am here after all, to let you all know why I did what I did, it doesn’t matter to me anymore.

  I had been trying to build up the courage to become fear, to stop letting it control my life, but so far I hadn’t found that the timing was right. Sure there were days when I thought I should go for it, and I did try, but I always found a reason to back down.

  Then I saw them a male and a female, and knew that my time had come, that the moment of my rebirth was here.

  I saw them standing on the corner of Yonge and Queen, looking innocent and lost, just perfect for what I had to do. I began to follow them at a good distance so that if they looked back they wouldn’t see me, as they headed north on Yonge Street. I felt my own fear rising in me again as I was sure they would see me, or that someone walking by would be able to tell what I was doing, that they’d see right inside my head to the thoughts that were brewing there. I didn’t stop though; I refused to succumb to my old ways. This was the day I took my life back and I wouldn’t let my closest friend, fear, and stop me.

  When they came to the Hard Rock Cafe at Yonge and Dundas, I saw them turn right and walk east along Dundas. I smiled to myself and gave a quick look around as I turned the corner. Nobody seemed to notice me and that was good, because my time was almost at hand. A few blocks later, I saw the two of them turn into an alley on the south side of Dundas and knew that it was time, that the fear that had surrounded me all my life was now about to become a living force.

  I walked into the alley’s dark mouth shortly after they did and could hear their quiet voices somewhere up ahead in the shadows. I felt my pulse begin to race as I walked as silently as possible, seeing their shadowed outlines ahead of me in the barley lit alleyway. I walked quietly, hands
in my pocket and realized that this was it, this was the reason I had lived in fear for thirty years. It wasn’t meant as a way to torture me or hurt me, it was all a preparation for this exact moment, to be able to deliver the fear that had grown in me. I always thought of it as a virus, something running through my veins that was slowing eating away at me and would eventually kill me. But I was wrong. It was growing inside of my so that I could nurture it, like a mother and give it to the world.

  “Who the Hell are you?” The male of the group called out to me, startling me as I had been caught up on my own thoughts and had forgotten about them for a second. I stopped in my tracks and could see them a little better now, seeing the glowing head of a cigarette or joint in the girl’s hand and a mix of anger and fear in the boy’s face.

  I said nothing in response though, instead, I started walking towards them again, pulling my hands from my pocket and with my hands a large knife that I had brought with me. I didn’t let them see the knife though, no need to spoil the fun just yet, not as if they had anywhere to run to at this point though. It was a dead end for them in both directions now.

  “Can I help you with something, asshole?” The male spoke again, but I still didn’t answer, just continued towards them.

  It was then I felt the real change in me, for the first time in my entire life I noticed that I felt not the slightest twinge of fear inside, but a new power was throbbing within, seemed to grow with every step, waiting to explode out of every pore I had so it could reach out and do what it was meant to do.

  To spread. To make others fear the way I once had.

  “Dude, are you fucking deaf? Or what?” This time it was the female that spoke.

  I was less than five feet away from them when she spoke and to answer her question I lifted my hand a revealed the cold blade that they would soon become very intimate with. I gave them a smile and continued to walk towards them, seeing their faces fill with the realization of what was about to happen and the anger that had been in their faces moments before quickly bled out to be replaced by fear.

  The female backed away, her eyes wide like a deer trapped in the headlights of an oncoming car, and she let out a yelp as her back came in contact with a dumpster.

  “Hey, dude, listen. We don’t want any trouble here, k?” The male said, holding up his hands to show me that he was unarmed. “If you want money, we really don’t have any. Maybe two or three bucks. You can have it if you want it.”

  “Oh, I don’t want your money.” I told him.

  “What do you want?”

  “Hmmm, what do I want?” I asked mockingly and moved even closer to him. I saw the female crouching down beside the dumpster to hide from me, but I didn’t care. I knew she wasn’t going anywhere. “Well what do you think I want? Shhh! That’s a rhetorical question. I’ll tell you what I want. I want your fear, I need it. So I have to take it!”

  I quickly stepped in front of him and felt my body instantly tingle all over as the fear that lived inside me and what he was feeling, mingled and intertwined with each other. That feeling, I figure is what sex would feel like. For a moment, as I slid the blade into the soft flesh above his pelvis, as he opened his mouth and gasped before he could scream, it’s exactly how I pictured sex. I pushed the blade into him, slowly, enjoying the feel of it, until my hand was pressed against his already blood soaked shirt.

  He left out a faint whimper, his eyes were wide and full of terror and I felt my entire body spasm with pure joy. I gave him a bright smile, hoping he knew how he had real been the key for me being free of the shackles of fear, and then I jerked the knife upward as had and as fast as I could. Blood spayed from his open lips, as my blade severed his stomach, it I felt like it was my baptism. This was Jesus taking John into the water for his rebirth. This was my new life, my growing, and my becoming. I knew that this was what I was meant for as I looked down and saw my blade slide out of him, having been stopped my his rib cage and saw the male’s intestines slide out of the huge opening I had made, and fall to the dirt ground in the dim alley. I touched his face just before his legs gave out and he fell to the ground to be with the organs I had just released.

  “Yoo-hoo!” I called out playfully and walked away from the male and moved towards the dumpsters to where the girl was hiding. I couldn’t see her at all from where I was, so I walked further into the shadows, knowing where she would be. As I walked I wiped the thick globs of blood from my knife on my black jeans and began to whistle a song to myself, I think it was ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” now that I think of it.

  I had a skip in my step as I walked, feeling like I had never felt in all my years, lighter, and more powerful. I could hear the girl sniveling in the darkness and that only added to my own energy, my fear feeding off her fear. I began to whistle “A Little Night Music” by Mozart and used my knife as a conductor’s baton, and readied myself to attack.

  “Come on out, Darling. Better to just face your fear than to hide from it.”

  She began to sob and when I heard her, I moved towards her to find her curled up between two dumpsters, snot drooling from her nose. How afraid she was electrified to me.

  I stopped to soak in the feeling.

  That was when she screamed.

  Her scream was full of fear and terror and echoed through the alley and suddenly the fear that was lining my skin ad pouring out to attack, began to creep back into my stomach, filling me again with that familiar feeling that I knew all too well.

  My head shot towards the mouth of the alley, thinking that the police, or worse, the shadowy figure that had been following me all my life was about to come out and punish me for screwing this all up. Maybe the guy I had just killed was pushing his intestines back into his stomach and was coming to get his payback, ready to make me join him in the land of the dead.

  There was nobody there though. To be on the safe side though, I decided not to linger here any longer, not to enjoy her death as I had his.

  I ran over to where she was still crouching and grabbed her by her stringy black hair, gripping as tightly as I could, and then slammed the long blade into the back of her head, the metal of the blade singing off her skull. I pushed hard and fast so that the blade exited out the front, tearing out her left eye as it came through the socket.

  She didn’t even have a chance to scream. By the time I pulled the blade out of her and dropped her, she was already dead. She tumbled to the ground sideways, but I didn’t stay to watch her twitch, I turned and ran out of the alley and right into the arms of two cops.

  My career as a killer ended on that day, and I winded up here with you so that you and your little pals can pick at my brain and see what makes me tick. Hell, you might even think you can get famous wit all of this, right? You think I’m like the rest of them, like Manson, Gein or Lucas, but you’re so wrong. All of you are. See, those guys were crazy, I’m not.

  I am fear.

  And fear is me.

  *

  “Doctor,” Nurse Thorne said after the doctor closed the door to the patient’s room. The doctor turned. “Is he doing any better?”

  “No. He still is under the impression that he is a serial killer. Every time I speak to him he creates a new story of some new murder he has committed. He has said nothing yet about what actually happened.”

  “So he doesn’t even know that he is the only survivor of Douglas Clatt?”

  “Not that he’s showing so far. Instead he is hiding behind these stories of how he uses fear to kill people. He’s lucky to be alive, but there’s no way to get through to him at this point. He lived through what nineteen others didn’t.”

  “It must have been horrible what he saw then.”

  The doctor looked back at the patient’s door and shuddered from a wave of fear that swept him. “I don’t even want to think about that.”

  All Things End Terminal

  The voice over the PA system woke Jeff up from his sleep and a deep dream that he would not miss at all. It hadn’t been on
e of those that you wake up from and are angry because you were just about to cum and some idiot calls you right at that great moment. This dream was one of those dreams that are closing in on a nightmare, where you are running with lead filled legs, or see a tornado quickly approaching you, so being woken up from that was no loss. He rubbed at his eyes, trying to focus in the harsh light and remember where he was because for a brief second he had forgotten, then remembered; a bus terminal.

  He looked at his watch, out of habit and remembered that it had stopped working, but what did you expect from a nine dollar Wal Mart special? He should have chucked it when the damn thing had stopped working, or at least taken it off, but he didn’t want to see the ghostly mark it left on his slightly tanned skin. It was like looking down and being able to see that something was missing from his life, a mark to say you are no longer complete.

  “Need the time?” A voice asked to the right of Jeff, and when he looked over, he saw an old man smiling at him, yellow teeth poking out from his purplish lips. Jeff didn’t like the look of him; in fact he really didn’t like old people at all. For some reason, they scared him. His girlfriend had once told him that the reason he was scared was because they reminded him of how frail we all are, how close to death we all really are, but that wasn’t it at all. To Jeff, it was like looking at a creepy zombie, or some wax figure come to life. They just creeped him out like clowns, crackheads and albinos did. Nothing rational at all about it.

  “Yeah sure.” He said to the old man and hoped that this would not lead into a long conversation. He really hated public transit, waiting rooms, line ups at banks and stores, anywhere that people had to sit or stand around with no real escape because that’s where old people, the yappers, liked to pounce on people that just wanted to be left alone. Places like this bus terminals were perfect places for those kinds of people. There were times when he’d be sitting there on the bus, read a book or listening to music and along comes some old fool trying to interrupt him with banal talk of the old days or the weather or some crap like that. When the old man told him that it was eleven thirty-two, he was glad to see that the man had no intentions of starting a conversation with him and he was happy for that. He didn’t need to hear the guy’s life story about lost loves, kids and his droopy balls splashing into the toilet every time he sat down.