He could see through the flames that engulfed his brain that it was nothing but mortal man. He lifted his scythe to his shoulder and quietly walked up. The man seemed to pay him no mind as he sidled up to stand before him. He was preoccupied with something in the pocket of dirty brown trench coat. It wasn’t until death stood before him with weapon raised that the man realized what was standing before him. The wicked fang of the scythe reflected the street lamp like the fire in deaths head. The deaths mask stared with empty eye sockets, bleached white bone and slightly yellowed pointed teeth grinned wickedly with out coaching. Blanching the man fell backwards, just out of reach of the falling blade that came toward him like a hawk seeking it’s prey. He fell and rolled instinctively desperately trying to get that thing out of his pocket.
Death hissed angrily when he realized his blow had missed. With the experience only he would have he quickly recovered his swing and stepped back with blade raised to reassess his victim. The fever broke out a new wave of flame through his body. It was humanity that made him what he is, the fever raged. All those screaming little whelps that begged, pleaded and finally cried all the way to the afterlife when his blade stopped there bleating. Those blasted sheep made him a monster and now he would show them! No one will ever meet Death peacefully! The fever drove through him like a spike, the pain shaking his body into more convulsions. His skeletal hands gripped whiter to the handle as he brought it down yet again on the man.
After a brief moment of struggle in his pocket the man finally had his hand free. He hauled the object up in one finally desperate act as the blade quickly came to the end of its trajectory. He rolled and raised the gun firing until the lead would no longer issue forth from the end of its’ barrel.
Death stood stunned, frozen in mid swing. His hood had fallen back onto his shoulders and his complete skull was unprotected. He felt the first bit of lead enter into an eye socket. It burned its way through the scraps of fevered brain and exploded out the back of his skull in less than a second. Flames answered the bullet shooting out the new opening and engulfing the leering death head. With an unearthly scream carried on the wind by a million demonic souls Death fell to the ground in a hellish blaze. The fire rose up to meet the sky before falling also on the man who had killed Death. He felt it burning his skin with it’s acidic torture. Searing its’ way into his skin until it became a part of his whole being. The flames assaulted his mind and ran the length of his veins. Every nerve was infused a continually tingling. The fever ate cruelly at his brain, images of monsters and creatures danced in the flames. Hatred was bred in every dark corner. The man rose bathed in the blue and red that crawled across his face and hands. He picked up the cloak of the now less than embers Death and donned it with a flourish. In a flash that lasted mere seconds he felt his skin melt away. Blood, muscle, sinew, and nerves tightened and shrunk until they no longer existed. With one white skeletal hand he also reached for the scythe. Gripping it tightly he brought it clutching to his chest.
The next day all the papers told the tale of a mugger who was found burned to death beside a street lamp on one of the city’s corner streets. Early pathology reports suggested spontaneous combustion. But there was evidence of disease that was thought only to exist in those who lived who lived in a crypt for twenty years. Below that story was a companion peace. A new mass murderer threatens city! An unknown assailant who bore a remarkable likeness to the visage of the grim reaper was seen knocking on the door of a well-known businessman. “He first came to my door” one witness proclaimed “but I only looked through the spy hole and refused to let him in. He looked very sick. Like he may have had a fever or something.” A half-hour later police were called to the gruesome scene next door. “I knew he was sick, but I would have never thought...”
Editor’s Ramblings...
If the darkest of nights could harbor the vilest of creatures, then your life would mean less than a grain of sand in a desert. Can you hear the rapping at your window? It's only the wind howling madly. Twin piercing red eyes glare into your soul. Fangs glint mercilessly drawing the blood from your fevered mind. Beads of reddish sweat are squeezed from the pores on your forehead. Do you bleed at just a thought? Can fear be this devastating?
When you walk alone on a dark and desolate night. You may find yourself imagining the worst horrors! Look at the sky, clouds shroud the night in a death cloak, stifling any comforting illumination the moon could possibly offer. Perhaps the moon only sits behind the wall cruelly laughing at the fear that feeds on your soul.
The night slowly makes way for the day and the expected comfort from the dark thoughts that nag at you mind is at hand. The sun may even shine. But the day is does not wash away the Fright. The night will come again, and light is never a consolation from reality. Fright is therefore not a temporary state of mind but lives with you always. Fright lives off of you. As long as the world is full of fear. Only the strong may survive and only those who fear will die. Which is everyone. Fright will survive!
The sun completes its journey across the sky. As it dips away to shed its light on another dark hemisphere the unreal fears return newly born from those that are real. Together they are an unstoppable force. Horror is multiplied and dreams are numbered. Blood runs from new cuts and bites. Beasts will feed and all will fear. Fright will reign and blood will flow.
Daemons Child
I’m a heartless son of a bitch. I can’t say why or even how I became such a monster. I just wish everyone would understand and except the fact. Take it for what it is instead of trying to improve me. I care for no one, except myself. I taught myself to be this way. I hate, I lie, I cheat and I love it! This is my true love. I have no others. Oh yes, I have loved before. Once or twice at least. To which I was either screwed up or just plain screwed. Their hearts now forever belong to me, enclosed in pickle jars. The tiny ventricles like tentacles forever floating in a sea of preservatives. Sometimes I like to play with them. Turning the jars over and shaking them all about like they did me. It’s funny to see the stringy veins waving about frantically as if trying to escape!
I tried to be good, I actually have! The concept is alien to me. Perhaps I am forever destined to despise all those do-gooders who force their kind loving ways upon me. How many times must I cut off the hands that feed me! A casket full of rotting and stinking hands and yet they persist! Even still I am murdering them as they step out from the protection of their light and goody, goody life! A collection full of hearts and intestines displayed before me in a grotesque array of poses. There liquids turning sickly brown and reeking now of the hatred I have bestowed upon them. And yet they still continue forcing their love upon me! If only they new!
Perhaps I am his! A child born of his unholy fire! I know not why he would desire me but I am more than happy if it should be true. I do not worship him. I don’t have to, I am already his. My many gruesome acts have guaranteed me a place by his side. I’m more than certain that’s why he’s let me be for now. I am his chosen one! He has chosen me to wreck my havoc on the world and in return he will protect me until my usefulness here is done. Here amongst my collections of heads that hang from the rafters with their dead fixed gaze always on the ground at my feet. Worshiping me! Their conqueror! Cracked skulls with green seeping, rotting, infested, goody two-shoes brains!
My parents? Bah, what of them!? The bible says to honor thy mother and thy father and yet the only honor I have shown them is to allow them to rot in their glass cages while begging me for release. They still lay in their own blood and filth decaying. Their bones beautifully cracking through tight and withering skin. Mildew and all the other disgusting growths of death the only life.
Am I evil! Am I insane! I think not. I am more than content with the way I am. But what do I care what you think of me. You would only accentuate my collection quite nicely. For I have little regard for anyone, except myself
.
The beginning of the end...
Of the beginning:
Here we are again most nervous reader! Only you’re in luck this time! This may very well be the last issue! Hurray! Aren’t you so very, very luck? But wait! Just because it’s the last issue doesn’t mean you’re off the hook! This is the last issue for now! But Fright will never leave you, for the beasts and I always be within you!
I hope you have a wonderfully terrible summer and may your dreams be infested by the most loathsome creatures! In other words have a great time and very, very sweet dreams, very sweet.
Well my time has come to an end for now and those guys in the white jackets are getting impatient. So I better wrap this up before they wrap me up. But before I go I got a little dread to spread as acknowledge a few hapless souls who have helped make all this possible. Cuts and slashes to all of you! So here goes...
As if they’d admit to anything!
Special Thanx To:
Allen Burt: My nearest and dearest high school chum. Without question you followed this raving lunatic to hell and back without questioning his motives once. But in case you haven’t figured it out I’m after only one thing my brother, world conquest! Wahahahahahaha-ha! You know, you never once read my stories when I always read yours. Try reading this time bud, all the hints are there! By the way this would be a good time to point that Alpo here was one of our mystery writers, he wrote the delightfully twisted scenario in issue 3 entitled A dark and dreary evening in the countryside far away from anyone by The Madman. Now that explains a few things. Luck with life my friend! And remember, when the beasts come knockin‘, they’re messengers from me!
Michelle Miller: Behind every great writer is someone with a stapler to keep all the pages together. Thank you so very much for being that woman! Whoever said it was a thankless job never had to keep these gruesome papers together. Without you those fools that read this stuff would have to staple them their damn selves!
Chris Catlin: Well, someone has got to get the boot in the ass and guess what! Your it! Thank you s very much for keeping all the counselors informed of my insanity. If I had a dime for every time I was called into the office over this paper I would be able to hand them out for free. Oh wait, I already do. Okay, I wouldn’t have to put them all in a book and charge for them then! You’ll be happy to know that I’ve been committed again! 20 years this time! I’ll send you a picture! By the way, that monster in your closet? A gift from me, enjoy!
Mr. David (Big Mac) McMacken: Once again you survived another year with my leering grin in your classroom. So, Can I write or can I write? By the way I’m looking for an editor, since you already know how good a speller I’m not and how good my grammar isn’t maybe you’d like a job?
Miz. Mary Jane Furtaw: You always new you had a writer in your class. Thanks for helping me realize it. 20% right?
And to all you faithful readers who read to be scared if only for a little while, see you tonight when you turn out the light!
Finally! The moment you’ve all been waiting for! Now we know the real reason why he’s trapped in his desolate nightmare, but will the powers that be agree to release him on a promise? Can he keep such a promise? Find out in the conclusion of...
The Dream
I got to my feet and started walking. I walked for a long time, it seemed. I guess even the powers that be had even given up on me. Then went around another of those endless and corners and saw a light! I was startled at first but then realized what it meant. I was on my way out! I was going to make it! Tears came to my eyes as I ran toward it.
I was lying down. The light was bright and shining into my eyes. The light went out and I looked up into the face of a man. He was a doctor and I was at a hospital. It was the day after I had first taken my walk. I had been found, taken to the hospital and had been in a coma ever since.
Then it all had to be a dream! I smiled to myself when I thought of that. The next day I was released from the hospital and I walked out of the building with a spring in my step; and new outlook on the whole thing. What about the promises I had made in my dream? It was a dream; it never really happened, did it? Then the promises meant nothing, didn’t they?
#
And now by the pale light of the stars I sit here with tears running from my eyes and commit my story to paper. My end is coming soon, I know and I must tell the final part of my story.
I waked out of the hospital thinking everything was the same as always. I was confident in myself and would not let that silly dream upset me. With my briefcase in hand I walked into my office, went up in the elevator, stepped off it and ran into a wall. Strange, I thought, that the wall should be here. I looked up to the ceiling but saw instead the twinkling of stars above. Then I knew what had happened. I was back in my nightmare, but this time I was not dreaming. I screamed.
And that my friends is the end of our poor fellow. Funny thing about the powers that be, they may release you on a Personal Reconnaissance Bond, but always remember that bond can be easily revoked! And just so you kiddies don’t feel ripped off, I’ll take this time to unmask our mystery writer and introduce you to my father, Paul E. Hunt. I guess the apple don’t fall to far from the tree, eh? Hehehehe. The story was originally published in a Lake Superior State College magazine in the mid-seventies. Unfortunately he went on to earn his degree in psychology, to explore the human mind rather than to exploit it. That my loyal readers he left to me! I was just a pup back then but now you can understand were I got twisted! Hehahehaha! Thanx Da for giving me this brain!
Last Request
When blood runs through the streets like a great river than evil has finally won the battle of ages. Avoiding the flow of life is not avoiding the thought. Always think of it. Always believe in it! And always remember there will always be Fright. Lot’s of luck to all who are about to face the beasts of life. May your blood flow only in your veins.
Horrible Nightmares!
J.P. Hunt
And that my friends is all I wrote! Now how about a taste of something new?
From...
Shadows
So many shadows, this world is of ours a mere shadow. Our lives so dark and bent into elongated shapes of the true forms of souls. Shadows that are so easily snuffed out by the purity of bright light or smothered in utter black. Disappearing for a time but returning again in darker corners. Stretched and displayed in grotesque sizes and shapes, dark and evil. Born to be our blackest souls, lying deep within ourselves.
It was Mid-January when I met my dark soul. Of course I’ve seen him before, played with his elasticity, laughing and crying at the comical menace. All this without ever knowing the spirit behind the man who appeared in the gloom and disappeared into the black or white. As a child he was sometimes my best friend. Someone to spend the long lonely hours with laughing and playing until it was time for him to go. Sometimes he was the “nobody” or “I don’t know” whenever I had done something bad, most times I wasn’t sure, perhaps it was he who did it. After all, he was also the monster in the closet, the creature whose distorted image left me shivering under the covers so many times. I always thought he had a personality of his own, that perhaps he enjoyed these games far more than he should. How was I to know the truth, such things are deep within the imagination of a child! Convincing one that it is not imagination at all but a real monster created from your worst nightmares or the scary movie you just saw when you should have been in bed, safe under the covers, safe and sound, hiding from the shadows.
(continued in Shadows: A Collection of Stories and Poems)
Body of Evidence
I saw the flash from the barrel long before I realized what it was. I thought I was in a deserted alley I had turned down. I expected nothing but trash filled dumpsters and litter drifting with the wind. The man in black came out of nowhere, raised his fist, and then a blaze sparked. There was no time for a reac
tion although involuntarily my hands still tried to cover my face. There was no pain at first. I thought I detected a slight fleck of something enter my left eye like when a gnat crashes into your cornea. Then it felt like a hot poker or maybe even a wasp traveling stinger first. I half consciously blinked hoping to clear the blindness that followed. By then the bullet had propelled deep into my brain followed by pressure to the back of my skull. It began much like a migraine only took less time. That's when I heard as well as felt the explosion in a deafening roar. The bullet crashed through the back of my skull and violently snapped my neck back. I could almost feel the blood and other matter escaping to splatter against the wall behind me. The sickly sweet smell of burnt flesh and rotting refuse clung to my nostrils as I reeled and fell into a crumpled bloody mass. The pain was gone; I knew I had to be near death at this point. I tried to think but my brain wouldn't respond as it dripped from the bricks. I detected a faint thought for a moment... or perhaps it was just empty cylinders trying to fire without a spark.
Currently Untitled Zombie Genre Novel
Granpare was sitting on a make-shift bench watching the still swamp waters that surrounded the house when he saw his first zombie. The disheveled and grotesque features of the stranger rose up right out of the water and shambled towards him like it was normal to come walking right out of a gator's hunting area. Of course Grandpare had no idea what he was looking at was a straight up modern horror films version of the walking dead in search of flesh to eat. To him zombies were still those creatures of voodoo of which he may or not have actually witnessed at some point in his childhood. If the stories of his relationship to his great Grandmere Laveau were true, that is. As he would later think back to the tangled mess of man, limbs, and swamp he'd remark as to the fact that this zombie did actually look something like the one of his fuzzy memories past. Still, he raised the 8-gauge shotgun just in case.