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The sun, weak and watery from the cloud cover, burned into
Carl, and he whimpered. He found shelter in a crack in the rock, and the corpse
slumped through much of the day. Eager to drag him back to Hell, tormenters
snaked from the earth seeking him. An owl cast a baleful look at them.
In the distance a raven called, and the owl inched deeper into
the twigs of the tree.
Below him, the sun touched the ground, and the tormenters
hissed, fading under the light, and Carl’s spirit shrieked, dropping back into
the thirteenth level of Shambala, the black fires of Hell.
Towards evening Carl heard chanting, voices calling on the
god of the dark and raised his head. The owl called his name. Carl’s eyes were
ruined, exploded in the fire that killed him, but he saw well enough in the
pictures the owl used to guide him.
The crack widened to a man-made cavern. In the center was a
fire with worshippers swaying around it and calling out to the asgina Shon:gili
and the master, Owl
Carl’s stomach was cramped. He smelled their blood, and even
from here could feel the heat of their living flesh. He crept forward.
Coming close, he shrieked, the only sound his maggot-riddle
throat could make, and tried to grab one.
Clumsy and weak with hunger, he fell, his jaws gnashing at
anyone close.
Then he smelled it. Flesh on the verge of decay. Raw blood.
He crawled towards two mounds of meat sprawled on the floor.
One he recognized as male, and his teeth ripped into an arm, tearing away chunks
of flesh and swallowing whole. The female was there for him to use, if he
wished. A raw stump showed where someone parted the head from the body. Carl
looked away. Anna . . . The name came
unbidden to his soul.
Oh, Anna, but I love
you so.
His stomach swelled until he couldn’t choke down another
bite. A cold presence touched his mind. It enveloped the remains of his brain,
and he cried out in fear as cells changed, replacing the slime with brain
matter. The burned skin and flesh of his body swelled, changing, healing but
still burned and on fire as they had been for a year now.
Carl’s stomach heaved. He choked, then a knot of maggots
spewed from his mouth. He collapsed in them.
Gentle hands rolled him over and cleaned him.
He opened eyes that were again whole and saw faces smiling
down at him.
Memories of Shambala, Hell, shrieked in Carl. He screamed,
long and shrill, thrashing away from the people. Alive again, he raced into the
night still screaming at the memory of torment and laughing tormenters.
Behind him, the coven knelt, whispering prayers to the
ancient demonic god of the Werewolf.
Mike lay with his hands laced under his head, staring at the
ceiling. He glanced at the clock. Past ten. Creel muttered in his sleep, and Mike
winced as a short whistle came from the man.
Tempted, Mike touched the pillow, but it wasn’t Creel’s
fault he couldn’t sleep.
There was something about the girl, and he felt heat rising in
him. And Mama Cindy would saw it off with a dull knife. Mike forced his thoughts
to shift to the job and not the desire at hand.
The entire operation was a bust.
And whose fault was that?
He scowled, and Creel hit a high note. Mike bared his teeth
and, unbidden, one hand tugged on the pillow. Stuff the thing in his mouth right
down past the damned tonsils.
Instead he used it to cover his ears and with his eyes
clenched missed the TV sliding out from the wall.
A tiny jolt of warning made him open his eyes to a smiling
Cindy standing on the foot of the bed. Speak of the devil, and she doth appear.
He reached for the sheet to cover himself but stopped, letting her know what she
was missing. Letting her see everything.
“Hi, honey,” the holographic image said. Her voice was
sultry, and her eyes holding a come hither look that made him swell and grin.
And Creel snorted himself awake.
Cindy scowled at the man. Eyes wide and mouth sagging, Creel
bolted upright in the bed and slid a few inches in his white and red polka dot
silk pajamas.
A little breathless, he whispered, “Mrs. VanTur?”
“Get out,” she said and hissed, all sign of the hungry
lover now gone. “Get the hell out, you idiot.”
Creel shot off the bed and lunged over Mike’s in one long
bound. Mike shouted, throwing a hand up to protect the part of him Cindy loved
the best, and Creel’s foot hit it anyway. Creel yelped. He stumbled and smashed
into the door, sprawled back on the greenish carpet, then ripped the door open
and fled into the snow. The door beeped a few times in warning before closing
itself. The lock snapped shut.
“There?” Mike said. “All better?”
“Oh, just cool that look, mister,” she muttered.
“Damned men, smirking for no good reason.”
“Oh, memory serves me well,” he said, drawling out his
words and stretching on the bed. “How about you, Bouncy?”
Her eyes widened and she glanced around. “For the love of
the gospodas and gods, are you crazy, talking like that? Someone might hear.”
“In your office?" A lazy smile drifted over his face
and he rubbed his jaws, the nails rasping over the bristles on his face. “Put
up the hood if you don’t like it. Remember the time we had to use it?”
Smooth eyebrows waggled at her blushes. “Put a real nice stain on the ink
blotter, didn’t we?”
Trying to give him a warning scowl, Cindy slapped at
something on the desk and her holograph blurred.
“Now I can barely see you,” she muttered, her tones
peevish. “What’s with you, Michael, teasing me in public.”
“Oh, maybe I need to take some time off. This damned hunt
is wearing on me, and I need a little R-&-R. Any ideas?”
“Cancun,” she said, her words muttered and heavy.
“Perhaps Telluride or the black sands of Hawaii . . .”
“ . . . No,” he said, “I like the early
American charm of a certain Bed-&-Breakfast in Virginia. A fine old farm
that still raises the best thoroughbreds in the state.” He motioned for the
holograph to come closer, and he could hear her breath thicken.
©2004 StoriesByEmail.com
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