The Black Farm

by Elias Witherow

  Weakly, I reached out and grasped the chain, begging for some relief. My chaffed skin howled as the iron scraped around my neck, drawing blood. My fingers found the wet leash and I gripped it, trying in vain to halt our progress.

  The massive man felt the slight resistance and turned, his eyes meeting mine. I felt a sickly horror rise in my chest as I gazed upon him. The bottom half of his face was blown out, his nose and jaw a mess of mangled gore. His mouth hung loosely from a tattered cheek and what few teeth he had jutted from exposed, open gums. His tongue was a stretch of angry red that dangled from his chinless face.

  He grunted when he saw I was awake and turned to face me. I cried out as he advanced, pulling something from his back pocket. I sputtered in the rain as he towered over me, his stench gagging me. I dug my fingers into the mud and attempted to pull myself away from his reach, but he caught me easily by the throat and slammed my head into the ground.

  Stars exploded across my vision and that familiar darkness danced in the corners of my eyes. I rolled over on my back and gasped, coughing against the cold rain. I blinked and tried to clear my mind, stretching it out in hopes to gain insight on this horrific new reality.

  As the fat man leaned down toward me, I noticed something wrong with the sky.

  Red gashes spotted the heavy storm clouds, like deep cuts in human flesh. These strange orifices gave way to long hanging strips of vermilion ooze that hung from the gashes like strands of drool. They swayed gently in the wind, like frozen strings of blood clutching an open wound. They were long and thick and my mind reeled beneath them.

  I didn’t have long to process what I was seeing as my captor grabbed a fistful of my hair and wrapped something dirty and wet around my eyes, blinding me.

  “S-stop it, please,” I croaked, hands clawing at him, “Why are you doing this? Where am I?”

  Darkness wrapped around my face once again as the man ignored my cries.

  “What do you want from me?” I sobbed, feeling him begin to tie my hands.

  He suddenly answered, his voice sounding like broken thunder, “Naw suppose-a-be awake.”

  I struggled against his powerful grasp as he bound my hands, futile cries pouring from my lips.

  Now, blind and restrained, I could do nothing as the man took his place at the end of the chain and began to drag me through the mud once more.

  Fear engulfed me in a sudden wave of cold ice. I realized I was completely helpless and had no idea where I was. Worse, this monster of a man was taking me somewhere as his prisoner and my imagination shook with unknown terror.

  I began to scream. My throat creaked as I let panic fill me, overwhelm me. I thrashed about, cold mud slapping my face and filling my mouth. It poured into my ears and stuffed itself up my nostrils. The chain around my throat cut deep and I couldn’t tell what was rain and what was blood.

  My shrieks did nothing to slow the man. He ignored me, obviously not concerned anyone would come to my rescue. This terrified me even more, but I found my howls were stuttering beneath the onslaught of mud and pain. My wrists burned beneath my restraints and my eyes rolled wildly behind the strip of dirty cloth.

  After a few minutes I went from screaming to gasping for air. My body felt like a soaked, beaten piece of meat. Rocks rose beneath me as I was pulled and soon my ribs began to scream as they rolled across them like a fragmented washboard. I don’t know how long I was dragged. I did my best to focus on just getting air into my lungs, one mouthful at a time. I began to shiver, the never ending rain snapping its icy teeth across my body. My shirt was soaked and torn, my jeans spotted with mud that weighed me down like an anchor.

  My brain sparked with blinding pain, sharp flashes with each tug of the chain. Thunder rumbled overhead and I heard something inhuman roaring in the distance.

  Jesus Christ, I thought, exhausted, terrified, what nightmare have I awoken in?

  And then suddenly, we stopped.

  I gasped in grateful relief as I felt the chain give a little. I heard it clank to the mud as the big man grunted with effort. I heard the creak of rusty hinges and then the sound of a massive door opening.

  I wanted to get up and run, take these brief seconds of distraction and bolt, but I just didn’t have the strength. My body was a useless mess of bruises and discomfort and it was all I could do just to lay there and breathe.

  I was suddenly hauled to my feet. I gasped as strong hands clutched me and dragged me forward. I tripped over myself and blindly reached out so I wouldn’t fall. A yank on the chain steadied my unsteady feet and I felt the air change around me. The rain ceased and a thick humidity now clung to my skin.

  The mud changed to hard floor beneath my feet and I realized we were entering some kind of building. The cloth around my eyes offered no glimpse as to where we were headed and so I pitifully allowed myself to be pushed along, praying I wouldn’t fall and smash my face open.

  As we walked, the noise began to grow around us. I could hear distant screams and cries followed by angry yelling and the clash of metal. A whirring sound beat above my head like the rotation of a giant fan and my nose was assaulted with the stench of stale sweat and unwashed flesh.

  “Please,” I begged, stumbling forward, “please just let me go. I don’t belong here, this isn’t right!”

  Heavy hands shoved me along and I fell into a fit of sobs and pleas. The chain dragged along the floor behind me like an iron snake and its coils echoed along the walls as we continued our march.

  Where were we going? What did this man want with me? Where the hell was I?

  My mind spun and twisted, trying to make sense of everything. I was supposed to be dead, my worries and existence left behind in the echo of peaceful nothing.

  Jess, I suddenly thought, throat tightening, Jesus Christ, where was Jess? Was she here?

  Suddenly, my captor stopped me. I stood motionless, chest heaving, waiting, heart racing.

  The chain around my throat slithered to the floor and I let out a hesitant sigh of relief. With bound hands, I reached up and rubbed the raw skin around my throat. My fingers came away warm and wet.

  I felt hands fiddling around the cloth blinding me and suddenly, that too was pulled away. I blinked, rubbing the back of my hands across my eyes, letting my vision return to me.

  We were standing in an empty cement room, lit by a single yellow bulb that hung from the ceiling like a rotten tooth. The walls were stained and dirty and the filthy floor was slick and slightly wet. I turned around to look at the door we had come through, but only saw the opposite wall of an empty hallway.

  “What do you want?” I begged, shrinking before the massive man who was now advancing on me.

  The man suddenly cocked his fist back and slugged me across the face. My head exploded with pain and I crumpled to the hard ground, blood spewing from my nose. I hit the floor hard and my breath left me in a gasp.

  “Ee quiet!” the man growled around his mutilated face.

  My brain swelled in my skull and I fought back unconsciousness. Blood dripped from my face onto the floor and I blinked sluggishly at it.

  I heard the clank of chains and suddenly I was hauled to my feet. The massive man bound my wrists and then threw the end over a beam that extended across the ceiling.

  He pulled on it and I felt myself stretched into a standing position, my arms restrained over my head like a dangling punching bag. My feet scraped across the floor as I fought to adjust myself to relieve the sudden pain in my shoulders. I found my balance and stood helpless before my captor, clothes in rags, body beaten and bleeding.

  The man fastened the end of the chain to a metal loop in the floor behind me and then turned towards the door.

  “What the FUCK do you want with me?!” I suddenly screamed, shaking in my restraints.

  The man paused and glanced over his shoulder.

  “Where am I!?” I yelled, chains rattling.

  The man grunted, then turned away and walked out the door, leaving me in horrified i
solation.

  I screamed at him, furious and frightened.

  “What are you going to do to me?” I whispered to no one, my voice quieting, tears blooming in my eyes.

  Minutes, hours, days…I don’t know how long I hung there. It could have been seconds or years. Every labored breath felt like an eternity. Every twist of the chain a lifetime of pain. My shoulders burned, my ribs ached, and my hair hung in tangled clumps across my bloodshot eyes.

  What nightmare had I fallen into? What twisted sickness was this?

  I didn’t know and the fear that came with that was the worst. My stomach knotted and my legs shook with the effort to keep myself standing, relieving the pressure on my arms.

  My mind swam and I began to drift, a blurry haze filling my head and contorting color and images. I don’t know if I was dreaming or projecting terror upon my reality, but it shook me to the core. What was going to come through that door? What suffering awaited me? What was this place?

  Drool leaked from my half-conscious mouth and I blinked as I heard a new sound enter the room. I raised my eyes, searching for the source.

  The room was empty.

  The sound came again, a slow slurping sound, wet and thick. Wincing, I craned my head to look at the ceiling and what I saw paralyzed me with absolute disgust and repulsion.

  A massive slug was crawling across the ceiling towards me, its bloated body at least two feet in length. A scream rose in my throat as I realized that it was dragging something behind it.

  The slug was protruding from the burst stomach of a man, whom it dragged behind it like a dead shell. The man’s eyes were open and lifeless, a look of pure agony stretching his long dead features. His arms and legs hung limply into the open air as the slug slithered itself closer to me.

  Strands of slime dripped across the dead man’s skin and fell to the floor in gooey puddles. The pale brown stalks of the slug lazily extended from its head like living pendulums, turning to stare down at me.

  I shrieked and shook my chains, fear ripping up my throat in a scream. I could only watch as it came closer and closer until finally it reached the crossbar and began to inch its way down the length of the chain.

  “Help me! Jesus Christ someone HELP ME!” I howled, shaking my bindings and pulling myself as far away as I could. Slime the color and consistency of mucus began to drip down the iron links and I felt it coat my hands.

  The dead man, the host of this creature, gazed down at me with glazed eyes, his hands weakly brushing across my face as the slug slithered closer.

  “Stop it! STOP IT! GET AWAY FROM ME!” I cried as the enormous mollusk began to wriggle down my arm, its gelatinous body engulfing my skin.

  Suddenly, the man hanging from the slug grabbed my hair, his eyes snapping to life.

  “Take this from me! PLEASE! FREE ME!” He gasped, his face swinging inches from mine. I shrunk away from his grasp, mind spinning, fear coiling in my chest like a burning serpent.

  “Get off of me! Leave me ALONE!” I screamed. I cocked my head back and slammed my forehead into the nose of the man. I was rewarded with a howl and then a sickening sucking sound that filled the room.

  On the verge of hysteria, I watched in revulsion as the force of my blow knocked the man backward, his body pulling away from the tail end of the slug embodied in his stomach.

  With a squishing sound, like a plunger slowly being pushed into a pile of wet shit, the man ripped free of his captor and fell to the hard ground where he lay motionless, mouth agape in a silent, final scream.

  I didn’t have time to vomit, though my stomach begged for it as the slug above me began to glide over my hair and then face.

  My skin was coated with syrupy ooze and I felt it drip down my neck as the twisting body of my new oppressor wrapped around my eyes and then mouth. Squirming darkness filled my senses and I opened my mouth to scream but it was flooded instantly with warm slime.

  In seconds, I was out of breath and my lungs hammered against my ribs.

  You’re going to die if you don’t so something! my mind blared, every alarm ringing with furious urgency.

  The slug tightened around my face, coiling across my throat like a noose. Its soft skin pressed in on me, squishing my nose and lips under its flabby coat of mucus.

  DO SOMETHING!

  Internally shrieking, I did the only thing I could.

  I opened my mouth and began to eat its flesh.

  My teeth dug into the slug, tearing away thick chunks like rotten jelly. With nowhere to eject the chewed meat, I gritted my teeth and swallowed. Warm liquid was pouring across my face in gelatinous curtains as I sunk my face back into the gored slug. Black blood squished between my teeth as I ripped another hole in its body, choking the slimy strips down my throat without even chewing.

  I gasped for air, my progress allowing the slightest of air pockets. As soon as I gasped, the hole filled with an avalanche of guts and blood.

  Keep…eating…

  Howling, I went in a third time, furiously plunging my snapping jaws into the creature, filling my mouth with its squirming insides. As my teeth clamped down and I ripped my head backward, I felt a rush of air as the giant body tumbled off my face and onto the floor.

  Immediately, my body rejected what I had consumed, a sudden heave in my stomach. I leaned over the wounded slug and vomited down onto its face, body shaking, eyes bloodshot and tearing.

  Without waiting, I raised my foot and brought my boot down over the slug’s head. With a satisfying pop, the mollusk exploded like a bubble of stinking pus. I flinched and turned away as my body and face were coated with its insides, the payoff to my violence.

  I wiped my eyes across my suspended shoulders and then spit on the dead slug, gritting my teeth.

  “Not today, fucker,” I hissed.

  Suddenly, I heard a slow clap come from the doorway.

  I snapped my eyes up and saw a man in his mid-thirties watching me. He had short brown hair and dull green eyes wearing a white button up and loose jeans. He continued to clap as he walked towards me, a slight smile twisting his full lips.

  “For someone who doesn’t want to live, you sure put up a hell of a fight,” he commented, kicking the dead slug off to the side with a disgusted look.

  I blinked back the remaining gore on my face, breathing heavy, “Who are you? What the hell is going on? Where am I!?”

  The man held up his hands, silencing me, “Stop, stop, stop. Slow down. Take a breath would you?”

  I gritted my teeth, twisting in my chains, but remained silent. I was exhausted, confused, and felt anxiety burn hot in my chest. Whatever misery awaited me, I wanted to know why it would be inflicted.

  The man leaned against the wall to my right, watching me. After a moment, he spoke, his voice controlled and authoritative. “My name is Danny. I’m in charge of the orientation process here. You’re obviously confused, as most are who find themselves in your position.”

  I shot a look at the dead slug in the corner, my mouth a thin line across my face.

  “What I’m about to tell you may come as a shock, but I want you to be patient and listen to me without going into hysterics. Got it?”

  I nodded.

  He crossed his arms, his eyes never leaving mine, “You’re dead. You killed yourself. Do you remember?”

  Ice shot through my veins, a sickening reminder of my act. My stomach knotted and I felt like I was going to throw up again. Of course I was dead. I knew that. But why was I here? Wherever THIS was…

  Danny continued, “This is the Black Farm. This is where God sends the souls who have ended their own lives. Do you understand?”

  My mouth was dry, my tongue a dry sponge around my teeth. “N-no…” I croaked, “No this isn’t right…there wasn’t supposed to be an afterlife…everything was just supposed to end.”

  Danny outstretched his hands, “Surprise!”

  “What is this place?” I asked, dread coiling around my throat.

  “The Black Farm,
” Danny said, sounding like he had recited it a million times. “It was created by God eons ago. The Devil and God couldn’t stop arguing over where to send you people, you Suicidals. A life of eternal damnation seems like a harsh punishment for a moment of weakness, right? So they created the Black Farm, a middle ground to send those poor souls who ended their own lives. And then they put The Pig in charge and forgot about us for a while.”

  “The Pig?” I asked, not sure I wanted to know.

  Danny nodded, “The Pig is our god here, in a way. God…king…ruler…tyrant…call him what you like. But it is the authority over our little reality. When God put it in charge and then turned his back on the Black Farm, The Pig saw an opportunity.”

  My mind was reeling, the onslaught of information overloading my brain with impossibilities.

  Danny pressed on, “The Pig wanted to create a life of its own, mirroring the creation of Earth and God’s children. But The Pig isn’t pure, it contains not an ounce of holiness within itself. And so, its attempts at creating human life where…” Danny gestured to the dead man on the floor, “Atrocities. Its creations, its experiments came out mutated, twisted, evil. They roam the Black Farm, killing, raping, murdering…they are sin incarnate, hateful things with black, monstrous intentions.”

  “What the fuck…” I wheezed, staring at the dead man, then at the slug.

  “The Pig let its creations wander free, unexpectedly pleased with the horrors it had produced. It watched as they tore the place apart, shaping it into the nightmare you see now. The more carnage and destruction they caused, the more The Pig’s vision began to focus. It started creating worse and worse mutations, finally molding the Black Farm into its own dark fantasy born of a hunger for evil and carnage.

  By the time God took notice of what The Pig had done, it was too late. The Pig’s hold over the Black Farm is cemented. So instead of destroying it and unearthing an age old argument between the Devil and Himself, God lets The Pig have its way here. Just so long as it doesn’t fuck with the other afterlives.”

  “N-no,” I whispered, unable to believe what I was hearing, fear ripping apart my insides with cold claws. “This can’t be what happens to us after we die…it…it just can’t…”