The Best of Horror Library: Volumes 1-5

by Bentley Little

  The big pistol wavers in Juliana’s shaky grip. She looks back at us, tears leaving burning tracks on her squalid face. Her sad blue eyes lock onto mine and she says the last words I will ever hear her utter. “I’m free.”

  Juliana smiles as she puts the gun to her head and pulls the trigger. The horrifying impact spins her in a full circle as her pale face disintegrates into fragments of bone and brain. Blubbering and bleeding, Abel crawls to her and gently wraps her lifeless body in his massive arms.

  The exultant noise from the crowd dissipates as the gunshot works its way through them. About a dozen of the more stouthearted revelers exit the tent to investigate. They immediately move to surround Abel, assuming the worst as he cradles the dead girl. Their cries for the harshest of justice fade to silence however as their mutual attention is drawn across the dusty field to our open cell. Their wide eyes and gaping mouths tell the story of the horrors we have become. They don’t understand why we are here. They see only the blood, the bruises, the broken children in chains.

  The Reverend bursts from the tent with Adam following close behind. After surveying the scene he waves hurriedly to Jeremiah and Lot. “I need you two to tend to the flock while I sort out this nasty bit of business. Jeremiah, you use that silver tongue of yours to keep the people distracted. Lot, gather the men and secure the tent.”

  The pair nod solemnly and move to their tasks. As they retreat, the Reverend turns his attention to Abel and the late Juliana.

  With Adam in tow, he pushes his way through the small knot of dumbfounded onlookers. Unleashing a vicious snarl, Wainwright plucks Abel from the ground. “You fool! You damned fool! Do you realize what you have done?” He hurls the big man into the dirt with ease, leaving him whimpering and cradling Juliana’s decimated corpse.

  The Reverend sighs heavily. “Malaco—, sorry, Adam, I believe my work here is done. There will be no more miracles today.” A look of pure disgust crawls across his craggy face as the band of men assails him with calls for Abel’s scalp. “Clean this mess up, Adam. Let no word of what transpired today escape this plain.” With barely subdued fury the Reverend takes Abel by the ragged throat and drags him, mewling and whimpering, away from the angry mob.

  As Wainwright withdraws, Adam raises a gloved hand and waves at Lot. The large man waves back and motions to the entrance of the tent. A pair of men, one called Isaiah and one I do not know, hurry through to join Jeremiah. Lot secures the opening, tying it behind them with a thick strand of rope. The other hands move slowly around the circumference of the tent, similarly binding openings and weak spots. A murmur of worry and discontent begins to swell inside.

  Satisfied with preparations, Adam grins, and for the first time I can recall, he bares what appear to be large fangs. His teeth are slender and razor sharp, like a mouthful of needles. The small group of men around him gasps and takes an involuntary step back.

  Adam laughs, pulls off his leather gloves and reveals not hands but coiled tentacles hung with serrated hooks. They uncurl slowly, pulsing and twitching as they taste the violence in the air. Adam lifts his head and howls at the bloody sun, and from beyond my line of sight, his brethren howl back. In those shrieks the assembled crowd hears, whether consciously or not, the somber message. All must die.

  The small crowd outside is strangely silent as Adam sprints into the heart of the throng. The black, pulsating tentacles hanging from his arms wrap around one unlucky throat and constrict, easily tearing through flesh and gristle. Adam roars and puts his teeth to his victim’s face, ripping off a huge swath of nose and cheek. Blood sprays in a wide arc, drenching the closest of the stunned spectators. The torn man tries to scream in unison with his tormentor, but can force out only a thin whine and look of pleading desperation.

  No one moves to help him, though; the huddled mass is frozen in shock and silence. Their minds still reeling from Wainwright’s miraculous spectacle, the grotesque butchering paralyzes nearly all of them.

  After a brief moment, a young man in a dark brown suit begins to shriek and babble. His fear spreads like a contagion, and the remnants of the mob scatter in a unified display of self-preservation. Adam instinctively leaps at the closest of them. Tearing a huge gash in the man’s leg to prevent his flight, Adam quickly stalks to the next victim.

  Foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog, Lot runs from his post at the entrance and smashes into the largest clump of fleeing parishioners, ripping and tearing everything in his reach. As he gnaws on a young man’s skull, I see he has the same sickle dentistry as Adam, and the same barbed appendages shredding flesh and bone. Lost in a frenzied bloodlust, Lot drops the mutilated corpse and unleashes his fury. Blood and bodies whirl around him, chunks of gore and clotted hair hanging from his fangs and hooks.

  The screams of those caught outside are soon echoed by those coming from within the tent. Jeremiah has apparently set to his task with the same vehemence and vigor as Adam and Lot. The tent’s white walls are soon soaked through with muddy red stains and cries for mercy.

  In the chaos, a few of the victims are able to escape the abattoir by wriggling under the hot, sticky canvas. As they scramble for whatever safety the baked earth has to offer, Lot and Adam give chase. Soon they are beyond where I can see and all I am left with are the sickening sounds of the hunt and the screams of the slaughter.

  The waning sunlight is suddenly blocked as Wainwright steps into the doorway. “I am sorry you had to witness this, my children. Please do not allow this savagery to affect your work. When given the opportunity, we will again perform such great miracles.” The Reverend sighs as he glances at the small girl with the massive exit wound in her head. “It is a great shame to lose Juliana. I quite liked her.” He pauses to cast an accusatory glance at Abel, who stands behind him, head down and crying like a whipped dog. “Have no fear, though. We will find more friends for you before the next show.”

  We have no reply to give as Wainwright slowly closes the door. He smiles warmly, but his eyes speak the truth, they always have. He knows we will all take the same way out as Juliana, given the chance; he calls us his children, but we will never be anything but slaves. The heavy, metal door bangs shut, cutting us off from the atrocities of Reverend Wainwright and his acolytes. Once again we are left without any answers or hope of solace. Once again we are left with nothing but silence and dark.

  And the show.

  The goddamn show, it must go on.

  Exegesis of the Insecta Apocrypha

  by Colleen Anderson

  “In the beginning, it was a shift, a flutter of orange and black that caught her eye and held it, pulling her into a new paradigm before she knew there ever was one. The opening of the butterfly’s wings fastened her two-year-old gaze forever.” Apocryphon 1

  The Apocrypha first appeared on the World Wide Web in the early twenty-first century. Their legitimacy as sacred writing was not considered for two decades, with arguments reiterating that class Insecta could never evolve to the state of written language, let alone into a mindset able to formulate histories and concepts of time. In light of the documented case of the child with compound eyes being born last year, as well as several climatic shifts that haven increased insect populations, the Insecta Apocrypha are being analyzed for new interpretations. Whether they are indicators of a convergence of evolution and intelligence to a new level is not in the purview of this paper.

  What draws the eye immediately is the symbolism. Butterflies and birds have long been seen as forms of the human soul. Just as the Bible opens with Genesis, so does the Apocrypha begin with a genesis of sorts, and at the awakening of a child’s consciousness begins the search for the meaning of soul. 2

  APOCRYPHON I—DISCOVERY

  Ever since that first erratic flight, Libby’s gaze followed minute forms of locomotion. Whether a larva wriggling, a beetle scuttling, a dragonfly flitting and hovering, or the leap of a grasshopper, she watched intently, tracing its path as long as possible. At the age of four, she squatted in t
he garden, staring intently at something that shivered the long grass. Inhaling noisily, she wrinkled her nose at the cloying smell but stayed put.

  Her father’s words were less than a fly’s buzz and her chubby little fingers itched to pick up one of the writhing white maggots that worked its way in and out of what was once a mouse. The grey brown fur was nearly indistinguishable under the moving carpet that gently trembled.

  In that instant Libby understood that life was cannibalistic, feeding on itself, but taking different forms. Life fed on death, death generated life—an intrinsic cycle.

  Early on, she noticed that people shied from answering her questions about death and decay. It disturbed them, especially when insects were involved in the decomposition. There was something about the mindless infestation of life feeding voraciously on the dead. A need was deposited in her, a small egg incubating, maturing the more attention she gave it, until it could eat its way out of her. The larval thought was curiosity, but it was inherently tied to watching life and death.

  Her father buried the mouse and its white pulsing attendants, digging a hole so deep that Libby never found the spot again.

  * * *

  One humid morning brought mosquitoes swarming from the creek in the back field. Libby had been walking with her mother, who had stopped to take a few pictures of plants. She listened to the whine of mosquitoes and held out her arm. They alighted, a half dozen or so, their needle thin proboscises piercing her flesh. They sucked and fattened on her blood. Although it itched slightly, Libby didn’t interfere with their feeding until her mother turned and said, “Libby, what are you doing!”

  Her mother frantically brushed the mosquitoes from her arm and dragged Libby out of the woods, swatting the whole time. At home Libby found her arm swathed in calamine. She watched it throughout the next day, fascinated by the reddish bumps that arose. If she scratched them long enough they enlarged and seeped a clear liquid before blood oozed like small volcanoes erupting. She licked her wounds, feeling the heat of her skin and the slight sourness of the scabs.

  She never shied from any insect, letting red-backed ladybirds and butterflies alight on her, moving her feet into the path of shiny, black carapaced June bugs, or walking into a spider’s web to induce the arachnid to crawl across her. Holding her mouth open, she would stick out her tongue, letting a few brave insects land so that she could feel the soft dance of their feet. Bites and stings often laced her skin and left her parents bewildered.

  Children have a natural curiosity and, like cats, they will watch anything that moves. They are sometimes considered cruel when, in their discoveries, they tear apart insects or hit another child with a stick. Libby’s early experiences, when read without the fictional embellishments, are within the normal range of a child’s development and expanding consciousness.

  It is possible that this early infusion of insect venoms laid the tracery for Libby’s later metamorphosis. Her next stage, in Apocryphon II, began at the age of six. Libby actively investigated the insect world and was ready to learn the depth of what they could do. 3

  APOCRYPHON II—EXPERIMENTATION

  She found an orange striped kitten in the field behind her house. There was a small stand of alders near the creek and she stood under the fluttering leaves, holding the mewing kitten. Taking a string from her pocket, she tied one end around the cat’s neck and the other end around a slender tree. Libby patted the kitten once, then walked away.

  It took three days for the insect world and the mammalian one to intersect. Each day she strode quickly to the grove of trees and checked the kitten. The first day it struggled and mewed loudly when it saw her. She turned and left it. The second day, it lay on its side, panting, croaking out a feeble meow. Libby searched for insect activity and on seeing none, left. The third day, she bent over, peering at the prone kitten. Its eyes were open and glassy. The slightly matted fur did not move.

  Libby settled herself in the grass, cross-legged, her elbows on her knees, chin in hand. Eventually, she noticed a minuscule flicker. She bent closer and watched fleas, which fed on the living, abandoning the carcass, some leaping off, some disappearing underneath, and even a couple of them crossing the surface of the corpse’s blind eyes.

  Next, the flies descended, buzzing and settling upon the creature, especially around its eyes, ears and nose. It had died with its mouth slightly open, the pink tongue showing swollen and dark. In crept a fly, glistening blue-black, and another, moving about, probing with insectile feet and mouth. The kitten’s body crawled with insects, alighting and flying ellipsoid orbits. Libby removed the string from the cat’s neck and returned home by dinnertime so as not to jeopardize her experiment.

  Each day, she returned to sit and watch the insect activity. In just a few days, the orange and white fur began to move and ripple, like wind over grass. Glistening maggots tumbled from the mouth and eyes, feeding on necrotic tissue.

  Eventually, ants and gnats and beetles crawled over the putrefying mass as the fur sloughed off, displaying the animal’s liquefying organs. Libby held vigil through all of it, noting when flies grew bored with the carcass and when ants and spiders moved in to remove morsels. The kitten’s body was a motel of activity. Only when the feeding slowed, with mostly bones and fur left, did Libby bury the corpse.

  It was a couple of years later that she took a puppy into the same woods. This time she did not wait for death’s slow claim but strangled the pup immediately, her hands choking off its whimpers as its black paws scrabbled in the air. When it stopped moving, she laid it on the ground, spreading out its silky ears.

  Then she pulled a sharp kitchen knife from her pack. It glinted in the afternoon sun as she studied the black body of the pup. She placed the point against the soft, nearly furless area by the genitals and pushed in, sawing up through the skin to the ribcage. Only a small amount of blackish blood pooled out. Then she cut under the ribs in smaller strokes and across, forming a T. Pulling back the skin and opening the organs to the elements had already brought the flies. Her knife pricked the pink intestines that seeped a fetid black fluid.

  Libby sat back as the flies settled upon her offering, humming their contentment. She twirled her wheaten hair, forgetting her hunger and almost missing the distant call of her mother. Scrambling up, Libby tucked away the knife and ran off.

  Her diligence brought her each day to note earwigs and the black bowl of hister beetle backs moving in and out of the architecture of decomposing organs while maggots were born and grew fat on the meat. Within a few days the dog’s black skin sloughed off the bloated body. Pupae from the flies eventually cracked their husks, emerging as a new generation.

  Libby’s interest only grew. Not far from her home was a two-story apartment building slated for demolition. The vacant shadows of the windows held only shards of glass. Plywood had been nailed up but vagrants and teenagers had pried them away. Libby had already explored the place, seeing what insects lived in dark and dank rooms.

  * * *

  When she was twelve she found a little boy of about five wandering down the street. He seemed to not realize he’d strayed far from the familiar. Libby gave him a cellophane-wrapped candy and as he popped it in his already sticky mouth, she said, “I’ve lost my puppy. Would you like to help me find him?” The boy nodded, pushing his stringy brown hair out of his eyes but not saying anything around the candy in his mouth. Gummy sweetness streaked his chin with brown and pink.

  She took his hand and he followed complacently. It was easy enough to get him into the building and have him sit while she grabbed an old rag and some rope. She deftly tied him and before he could whimper, stuffed the gag in his mouth. He began to cry, soaking the rag with saliva and snot. Libby ignored him while she readied her tools; tweezers and scalpel. A few alert flies already circled the boy’s face. From her pack, she withdrew several small jars, each holding a flickering, insectoid mass. In one she had scooped up beetles and earwigs and other ground insects. Another held the agitated
buzzing of wasps, while a third showed the constant flutter of color from butterflies and moths. Two more jars contained flies and caterpillars respectively.

  She ignored the boy’s muffled shrieks, refusing to hurry.

  After her experiments, Libby retied the gag on the unconscious boy, most of the insects having abandoned him, and threw a blanket over his body. He would be a better stew in the morning. She left and came back a day later, looking at his welted belly and peering at his crusting arms. Flies buzzed about the trickling snot on his face, landing and walking over his sweat-matted hair.

  Libby continued for a couple of days, watching how the fly larva grew on living tissue. The boy stared vacantly, drooling, barely making a sound. When nothing more could be gained from her observations, she untied him and watched. He didn’t move, just lay on his side. Maggots dropped off of his arms. There was no need to kill him. She packed up everything she had brought, removing jars, tweezers, scalpel and rope, leaving nothing behind. Libby walked away from the building, never to return.

  Between the first Apocryphon and the second, there is a shift of personality. What could be considered normal behavior for a child diverges wildly by the second writing, indicating sociopathic tendencies. Although Libby exhibits the escalation of brutality from animal to human subjects, she doesn’t seem to repeat these offenses, which is atypical for sociopaths. However, her behavior in detachment and lack of empathy is typical. 4

  Debate remains as to whether the Apocrypha only mark the first of each phase of Libby’s experiments, or if indeed she only conducted one event at each stage. The first two Apocrypha remain nearly emotionless, whereas the third takes on a slightly different tone and it is believed that Apocrypha III and IV may have been written by Libby. Contention exists as to whether she wrote the first two, or if an unknown source fictionalized all of it. 5