For still he cries.
End over end down the pit. Sleeping and rolling in endless loops. Waking and flailing. His father’s lifeless body somewhere far down below. His love and life lost miles above the abyss.
Sometimes he can hear Her still, her pained yowls acting as the soundtrack to this endless journey. Her pain which, even now, fills him with triumph. A victory earned – albeit a little one.
But who else could mark the damned who had marked him? Who else could have knocked Her off her platform and sent Her reeling through eternity?
That is the real story to tell. When the lights go off and all that’s left is the cyclical recycling of your own life lived, that is the only story to tell…
Author’s Note
There’s something terrifying and sentient about Story, it seems to take on a life of its own.
Story is an amorphous creature, able to bend, warp, and shape into any guise. Not unlike the boggart from J.K. Rowling’s ‘Harry Potter’ series, I’ve always been fascinated by how a seed of an idea can be construed and interpreted into so many different forms.
A tale of love and woe can be seen as an ode to something beautiful. An ode to summer sun can be construed as an ironic fable of fragility and destruction.
What is this thing we call Story?
I ask the question with a deep want for an answer. The tale you have read started as nothing more than a seed of an idea, and it grew by itself, into something larger than even I had envisioned.
“Yeah, right,” I hear you say. “You’re the writer, you knew what you were doing all along.”
To a degree, I suppose that’s true. But this particular tale caught me by surprise.
For the last three and a half years I’ve written short stories for Hawk & Cleaver’s ‘The Other Stories’ podcast. These stories, based around monthly themes, have stretched my imagination, taken me to places I didn’t know existed within me, and eventually culminated in a printed collection released in Spring of 2018 under the title ‘Twisted: A Collection of Horror Shorts.’
‘Twisted’ contained 28 short horror stories, written by myself. Each of those stories were self-contained nuggets of horror. A morsel for the pallet. An entree, or hors d’oeuvre designed to wet the whistle and inject a shot of adrenaline into your veins.
Many of those stories could have been longer works. Hell, some of them tried. However, there has only been one story written for the podcast which has taken on legs of its own and walked into consciousness.
‘The Mark of the Damned’ began its life as ‘The Mark of the Dead’ and was an exclusive tale for our Patreon supporters. I wrote the story in a single morning, put it aside, edited it, passed it over to production and thought no more of it.
Several weeks passed. Several months. Time freed up in my schedule and I began to feel a little niggle in the back of my mind. This story of Quinton’s… This glimpse and peak into an evil which had no name… there was far more to tell. And it was calling to me. Calling and crying like a cat in the night.
I began to put fingers to keyboard. I planned a story which would scratch the itch. Cure the ailment which now plagued my tired writer’s mind. 10,000 words would do it, I was sure. 10,000 words and I’d be free. I’d be done. I could set the tale aside and move onto the next thing. Done. Finished. Finito.
Of course, as you’ve already guessed, that was not the case. Even as I forced myself to play within my constraints, the story could not be tamed. 10,000 words warped into 20,000 which became 30,000 words. And, here we are. A story of horror, death, love, and loss, wrapped up and packaged for your enjoyment.
Story can be an enigma. Story can be beautiful. In my experience, much like my nagging 4-year-old sitting beside me, Story demands the things it needs to grow and develop. Story takes no prisoners. Story snatches sleep and blurs the present.
Until the Story has been set free, the Story will not quiet—not unlike the beast contained within the story you’ve just read.
Quinton’s journey took me with the veracity of a hurricane. I hope he took you, too, and you enjoyed this tale, dear reader. Lost yourself in the magic of Story.
For only in Stories do we truly lose ourselves to the impossible, and learn what it’s really like to believe.
Daniel Willcocks
19th October, 2019
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About the Author
Daniel Willcocks is a chart-topping author and podcaster of dark fiction. He is one fifth of digital story studio, Hawk & Cleaver, co-producer of iTunes-busting 'The Other Stories' podcast, as well as the host of the ‘Great Writers Share’ podcast’.
Residing in the UK, Dan's work explores the catastrophic and the strange. His stories span the genres of horror, post-apocalyptia, and sci-fi, and his work has seen him collaborating with some of the biggest names in the independent publishing community.
If you're interested in following Dan's work, you can join his ‘Darksiders’ Readers Club at www.danielwillcocks.com. Or, for everything else Dan is involved in, check out www.hawkandcleaver.com
Other titles by Hawk & Cleaver
Novels
Lazarus: Enter the Deadspace
They Rot (Book 1)
They Remain (Book 2)
Deeper than the Grave
The Hipster from Outer Space (Book 1)
The Hipster Who Leapt Through Time (Book 2)
Ten Tales of the Human Condition
Short Stories & Novellas
Take the Corvus: Short Stories & Essays
Dye Pack / Oil Slick / Gut Spill
Death Throes & Other Short Stories
The Jump Series
Sins of Smoke
Breeder
Keep up-to-date at
www.hawkandcleaver.com
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