Where flap the tatters of the King

by Various

  Once she gained the landing above, she could see the blade of yellow light that shone beneath the door to Camilla's room, and from within came the sounds that had summoned her. Quickly Cassilda crossed to the maid's room and knocked softly upon the door.

  "Camilla? It's Cassilda. Are you all right?"

  Again no answer, although she sensed movement within. The muffled sobs continued.

  Cassilda tried the doorknob, found it was not locked. She pushed the door open and stepped inside, dazzled a moment by the bright glare of the oil lamp.

  Camilla, dressed only in her corset and undergarments, stood bent over the foot of her bed. Her ankles were lashed to the base of either post, her wrists tied together and stretched forward by a rope fixed to the headboard. Exposed by the open-style knickers, her buttocks were crisscrossed with red welts. She turned her head to look at Cassilda and the other girl saw that Camilla's cries were gagged by a complicated leather bridle strapped about her head.

  "Come in, Cassilda, since you wish to join us," said Mrs Castaigne from behind her. Cassilda heard her close the door and lock it, before the girl had courage enough to turn around. Mrs Castaigne wore no more clothing than did Camilla, and she switched her riding crop anticipatorily. Looking from mistress to maid, Cassilda saw that both pairs of eyes glowed alike with the lusts of unholy pleasure.

  *****

  For a long interval Cassilda resisted awakening, hovering in a languor of unformed dreaming despite the rising awareness that she still slept. When she opened her eyes at last, she stared at the candlestick on her nightstand, observing without comprehension that the candle had burned down to a misshapen nub of cold wax. Confused memories came to her, slipping away again as her mind sought to grasp them. She had dreamed...

  Her mouth seemed bruised and sour with a chemical taste that was not the usual anisette aftertaste of the tonic, and her limbs ached as if sore from too strenuous exercise the day before. Cassilda hoped she was not going to have a relapse of the fever that had stricken her after she had fled the convent that stormy night so many weeks ago.

  She struggled for a moment with that memory. The sisters in black robes and white aprons had intended to wall her up alive in her cell because she had yielded to the temptation of certain unspeakable desires... The memory clouded and eluded her, like a fragment of some incompletely remembered book.

  There were too many elusive memories, memories that died unheard... Had she not read that? The King in Yellow lay open upon her nightstand. Had she been reading, then fallen asleep to such dreams of depravity? But dreams, like memories, faded mirage-like whenever she touched them, leaving only tempting images to beguile her.

  Forcing her cramped muscles to obey her, Cassilda climbed from her bed. Camilla was late with her tray this morning, and she might as well get dressed to make herself forget the dreams. As she slipped out of her nightdress, she looked at her reflection in the full-length dressing mirror.

  The marks were beginning to fade now, but the still painful welts made red streaks across the white flesh of her shoulders, back, and thighs. Fragments of repressed nightmare returned as she stared in growing fear. She reached out her hands, touching the reflection in wonder. There were bruises on her wrists, and unbidden came a memory of her weight straining against the cords that bound her wrists to a hook from an attic rafter.

  Behind her, in the mirror, Mrs Castaigne ran the tip of her tongue along her smiling lips.

  "Up and about already, Cassilda? I hope you've made up your mind to be a better young lady today. You were most unruly last night."

  Her brain reeling under the onrush of memories, Cassilda stared mutely. Camilla, obsequious in her maid's costume, her smile a cynical sneer, entered carrying a complex leather harness of many straps and buckles.

  "I think we must do something more to improve your posture, Cassilda," Mrs Castaigne purred. "You may think me a bit old-fashioned, but I insist that a young lady's figure must be properly trained if she is to look her best."

  "What are you doing to me?" Cassilda wondered, feeling panic.

  "Only giving you the instruction a young lady must have if she is to serve as my companion. And you do want to be a proper young lady, don't you, Cassilda."

  "I'm leaving this house. Right now."

  "We both know why you can't. Besides, you don't really want to go. You quite enjoy our cozy little menage a trois."

  "You're deranged."

  "And you're one to talk, dear Cassilda." Mrs Castaigne's smile was far more menacing than any threatened blow. "I think, Camilla, the scold's bridle will teach this silly girl to mind that wicked tongue."

  *****

  A crash of thunder broke her out of her stupor. Out of reflex, she tried to dislodge the hard rubber ball that filled her mouth, choked on saliva when she failed. Half-strangled by the gag strapped over her face, she strained in panic to sit up. Her wrists and ankles were held fast, and, as her eyes dilated in unreasoning fear, a flash of lightning beyond the window rippled down upon her spreadeagled body, held to the brass bedposts by padded leather cuffs.

  Images, too chaotic and incomprehensible to form coherent memory, exploded in bright shards from her shattered mind.

  She was being forced into a straitjacket, flung into a padded cell, and they were bricking up the door... no, it was some bizarre corset device, forcing her neck back, crushing her abdomen, arms laced painfully into a single glove at her back... Camilla was helping her into a gown of satin and velvet and lace, and then into a hood of padded leather that they buckled over her head as they led her to the gallows... and the nurses held her down while Dr Archer penetrated her with a grotesque syringe of vile poison, and Mrs Castaigne forced the yellow tonic down her throat as she pinned her face between her thighs... and Camilla's lips dripped blood as she rose from her kiss, and her fangs were hypodermic needles, injecting poison, sucking life... they were wheeling her into the torture chamber, where Dr Archer awaited her ("It's only a frontal lobotomy, just to relieve the pressure on these two diseased lobes.") and plunges the bloody scalpel deep between her thighs . . . and they were strapping her into the metal chair in the death cell, shoving the rubber gag between her teeth and blinding her with the leather hood, and Dr Archer grasps the thick black handle of the switch and pulls it down and sends the current ripping through her nerves . . . she stands naked in shackles before the black-masked judges, and Dr Archer gloatingly exposes the giant needle ("Just an injection of my elixir, and she's quite safe for two more weeks.")... and the nurses in rubber aprons hold her writhing upon the altar, while Dr Archer adjusts the hangman's mask and thrusts the electrodes into her breast... ("Just a shot of my Prolixin, and she's quite sane for two more weeks.")… then the judge in wig and mask and black robe smacks down the braided whip and screams, "She must be locked away forever!"... she tears away the mask and Dr Archer screams, "She must be locked inside forever!"... she tears away the mask and Mrs Castaigne screams, "She must be locked in here forever!"... she tears away the mask and her own face screams, "She must be locked in you forever!"... then Camilla and Mrs Castaigne lead her back into her cell, and they strap her to her bed and force the rubber gag between her teeth, and Mrs Castaigne adjusts her surgeon's mask while Camilla clamps the electrodes to her nipples, and the current rips into her and her brain screams and screams unheard... "I think she no longer needs to be drugged." Mrs Castaigne smiles and her lips are bright with blood. "She's one of us now. She always has been one of us"... and they leave her alone in darkness on the promise, "We'll begin again tomorrow," and the echo, "She'll be good for two more weeks."

  She moaned and writhed upon the soiled sheets, struggling to escape the images that spurted like foetid purulence from her tortured brain. With the next explosive burst of lightning, her naked body lifted in a convulsive arc from the mattress, and her scream against the gag was like the first agonized outcry of the newborn.

  The spasm passed. She dropped back limply onto the sodden mattress. Slippery wit
h sweat and blood, her relaxed hand slid the rest of the way out of the padded cuff. Quietly in the darkness, she considered her free hand—suddenly calm, for she knew she had slipped wrist restraints any number of times before this.

  Beneath the press of the storm, the huge house lay in darkness and silence. With her free hand she unbuckled the other wrist cuff, then the straps that held the gag in place, and the restraints that pinned her ankles. Her tread no louder than a phantom's, she glided from bed and crossed the room. A flicker of lightning revealed shabby furnishings and a disordered array of fetishist garments and paraphernalia, but she threw open the window and looked down upon the black waters of the lake and saw the cloud waves breaking upon the base of the cliff, and when she turned away from that vision her eyes knew what they beheld and her smile was that of a lamia.

  Wraith-like she drifted through the dark house, passing along the silent rooms and hallways and stairs, and when she reached the kitchen she found what she knew was the key to unlock the dark mystery that bound her here. She closed her hand upon it, and her fingers remembered its feel.

  *****

  Camilla's face was tight with sudden fear as she awakened at the clasp of fingers closed upon her lips, but she made no struggle as she stared at the carving knife that almost touched her eyes.

  "What happened to Constance?" The fingers relaxed to let her whisper, but the knife did not waver.

  "She had a secret lover. One night she crept through the sitting room window and ran away with him. Mrs Castaigne showed her no mercy."

  "Sleep now," she told Camilla, and kissed her tenderly as she freed her with a swift motion that her hand remembered.

  *****

  In the darkness of Mrs Castaigne's room she paused beside the motionless figure on the bed.

  "Mother?"

  "Yes, Constance?"

  "I've come home."

  "You're dead."

  "I remembered the way back."

  And she showed her the key and opened the way.

  *****

  It only remained for her to go. She could no longer find shelter in this house. She must leave as she had entered.

  She left the knife. That key had served its purpose. Through the hallways she returned, in the darkness her bare feet sometimes treading upon rich carpets, sometimes dust and fallen plaster. Her naked flesh tingled with the blood that had freed her soul.

  She reached the sitting room and looked upon the storm that lashed the night beyond. For one gleam of lightning the room seemed festooned with torn wallpaper; empty wine bottles littered the floor and dingy furnishings. The flickering mirage passed, and she saw that the room was exactly as she remembered. She must leave by the window.

  There was a tapping at the window.

  She started, then recoiled in horror as another repressed memory escaped into consciousness.

  The figure that had pursued her through the darkness on that night she had sought refuge here. It waited for her now at the window. Half-glimpsed before, she saw it now fully revealed in the glare of the lightning.

  Moisture glistened darkly upon its rippling and exaggerated musculature. Its uncouth head and shoulders hunched forward bullishly; its face was distorted with insensate lust and drooling madness. A grotesque phallus swung between its misshapen legs—serpentine, possessed of its own life and volition. Like an obscene worm, it stretched blindly toward her, blood oozing from its toothless maw.

  She raised her hands to ward it off, and the monstrosity pawed at the window, mocking her every terrified movement as it waited there on the other side of the rain-slick glass.

  The horror was beyond enduring. There was another casement window to the corner sitting room, the one that overlooked the waters of the river. She spun about and lunged toward it—noticing from the corner of her eye that the creature outside also whirled about, sensing her intent, flung itself toward the far window to forestall her.

  The glass of the casement shattered, even as its blubbery hands stretched out toward her. There was no pain in that release, only a dream-like vertigo as she plunged into the grayness and the rain. Then the water and the darkness received her falling body, and she set out again into the night, letting the current carry her, she knew not where.

  *****

  "A few personal effects remain to be officially disposed of, Dr Archer—since there's no one to claim them. It's been long enough now since the bus accident, and we'd like to be able to close the files on this catastrophe."

  "Let's have a look." The psychiatrist opened the box of personal belongings. There wasn't much; there never was in such cases, and had there been anything worth stealing, it was already unofficially disposed of.

  "They still haven't found a body," the ward superintendent wondered, "do you suppose...?"

  "Callous as it sounds, I rather hope not," Dr Archer confided. "This patient was a paranoid schizophrenic—and dangerous."

  "Seemed quiet enough on the ward."

  "Thanks to a lot of ECT—and to depot phenothiazines. Without regular therapy, the delusional system would quickly regain control, and the patient would become frankly murderous."

  There were a few toiletry items and some articles of clothing, a brassiere and pantyhose. "I guess send this over to Social Services. These shouldn't be allowed on a locked ward," the psychiatrist pointed to the nylons, "nor these smut magazines."

  "They always find some way to smuggle the stuff in," the ward superintendent sighed, "and I've been working here at Coastal State since back before the War. What about these other books?"

  Dr Archer considered the stack of dog-eared gothic romance novels. "Just return these to the Patients' Library. What's this one?"

  Beneath the paperbacks lay a small hardcover volume, bound in yellow cloth, somewhat soiled from age.

  "Out of the Patients' Library too, I suppose. People have donated all sorts of books over the years, and if the patients don't tear them up, they just stay on the shelves forever."

  "The King in Yellow," Dr Archer read from the spine, opening the book. On the flyleaf a name was penned in a graceful script: Constance Castaigne.

  "Perhaps the name of a patient who left it here," the superintendent suggested. "Around the turn of the century this was a private sanatorium. Somehow, though, the name seems to ring a distant bell."

  "Let's just be sure this isn't vintage porno."

  "I can't be sure—maybe something the old-timers talked about when I first started here. I seem to remember there was some famous scandal involving one of the wealthy families in the city. A murderess, was it? And something about a suicide, or was it an escape? I can't recall..."

  "Harmless nineteenth-century romantic nonsense," Dr Archer concluded. "Send it on back to the library."

  The psychiatrist glanced at a last few lines before closing the book:

  Cassilda: I tell you, I am lost! Utterly lost!

  Camilla (terrified herself): You have seen the King...?

  Cassilda: And he has taken from me the power to direct or to escape my dreams.

  Autumn Wind

  Kenneth Scroggins

  “The Autumn Wind is a Pirate,

  Blustering in from the sea,

  With a rollicking song,

  He sweeps along,

  Swaggering boisterously.

  “His face is weather-beaten,

  He wears a hooded sash,

  With a silver hat about his head,

  And a bristling black mustache.

  “He growls as he storms the country,

  A villain, big and bold,

  And the trees all shake

  and quiver and quake,

  As he robs them of their gold.

  “The Autumn Wind is a Raider,

  Pillaging just for fun,

  he’ll knock you around,

  and upside down,

  and laugh when he’s conquered and won.”

  – Voiceover for the Oakland Raiders by Steve Sabol, CEO of NFL Films,

  i
mmortalized in recitation by the legendary John Facenda.

  1.

  Edwards knew his life was forfeit. The Fate had his number. It was just a matter of time before one of their occult hitmen removed him and his two travelling companions. He kept walking down the street, anxious to unload some Dreamer’s Gold at a fine metals shop before it faded away. His careful, wired, paranoid alertness was also on the verge of dissolving. It wasn’t as immaculate as the gold, not as pure. Edwards became sloppy and dazed. He stopped and put his back into an alcove, trying to shake the sudden cobwebs from his brain. Drops of blood began to make rivulets from his nose as he doubled over. Ed clutched at his gleaming golden eyes, fighting the noisome fog imprisoning his brain.

  Three Men in Black exited their stark black limousine and caught ed before he hit the ground. He fought them, lashing out like a drunken monkey. The mysterious figures stuffed his struggling carcass into the car like a sack of moldy old potatoes. Quickly, they vanished into the anonymous city.

  Inside the warmth of the limousine, everything dropped away from the cold Autumn chill thickening his thoughts. His reflexes were about to turn around and do terrible things to the driver, but then he noticed the gun. An unidentifiable black toy outlined in chrome and silver pointed directly at Ed’s head. Holding it was a Man in Black. He spoke with a deep intonation, mocking James Earl Jones.

  “I suppose you’re wondering why I’ve called you here mr. Edwards,” said the MiB. Edwards remained silent, awaiting further exposition. He wondered where the other Men in Black were. It wasn’t important. Noting his companion’s reticence, The Man in Black let silence fill the void for a twenty minute drive down into a neighborhood filled with brownstone buildings and bits of cobblestone on the sidewalks. It was a purple sort of twilight, the sky was graceful but filled with cold clobbering winds.

  The MiB motioned for the unseen Limo driver to stop, and they pulled up next to a dark building with a red door. The number on the hand crafted wooden mailbox was seventy-seven. Edwards cautiously followed the Man in Black out of the limo, underneath a tree slowly being robbed of it’s leaves by that raider, the autumn wind. They stood in the shadow of buildings, awaiting night and winter as the limousine pulled away and went out of their lives. The Man in Black walked up the seven stairs leading to the door and took out an esoteric black key, encrusted with seven red rubies.