#fridayflash: Love on the Fringe

Love on the Fringe
By Louise Dragon

The girl stepped out of the fog and began to make her way around the tombstones toward Pom.


Pom Lasiter glanced quickly behind him, but he was alone in the cemetery. Not even a bird chirped.


Beautiful, yet sweet features adorned the slim body of the dark-haired girl stepping daintily through dew-moistened grass on the fringes of Cullman Cemetery.


Pom, heart beating more and more rapidly with each approaching step, tried to think of something witty to say. Instead, this came out: “What’s a pretty girl like you doing in a scary place like this?”


The girl stopped short, looked Pom square in the face, and burst into tears. Great big droplets that rolled down alabaster white cheeks and dripped onto her green gauzy dress.


Oh, great, Pom’s voice inner voice proclaimed. Meet a beautiful sexy girl in the middle of nowhere and what do you do? Make her cry? Charming, simply charming!


“I’m Pomeroy Lasiter,” Pom spoke quietly trying to keep the quaver out of his voice. “I didn’t mean to scare you. Is there anything I can do?”


“Edda. Edda Brudie.” She held out a petite white hand. Which immediately disappeared into Pom’s large brown one.


“I’m lost,” she sobbed. “I’m so lost and cold and tired. I need your help.”


Pom reluctantly dropped Edda’s waxy cold hand.


“You’re freezing,” he said removing his blazer and draping it over the girl’s shoulders -- like they do in the movies. She gazed up at him with the largest and bluest eyes Pom had ever seen. His knees weakened and his mouth dried up. At that precise moment in his young life, Pom knew what the phrase “love at first sight,” meant. This girl equaled that phrase for him. He would gladly do anything she asked. He gulped trying to get words to come out of his arid mouth.


“What can I do?” he choked out


“We-we were in an accident,” the girl stammered. Her voice lilted, with an almost singsong quality.


“Our car hit a tree . . . somewhere out there. I’ve been wandering around for hours looking for help. Wait, what are you doing here at this time of day?” Edda backed away slightly, a frown furrowing her pretty face.


“My girlfriend died last month,” Pom gushed out the words. It was all he could think of to explain his presence. He didn’t want this girl to know that he was so desperately lonely that he had planned to take his own life last night. Down a bottle of pills and die right here on a grave – any grave. Pom didn’t have a girlfriend. Pom never had a girlfriend, but things were looking up.


Edda’s face softened. “How sweet,” she murmured, relief washing over her pretty face. She moved in closer and once again looked up at Pom’s face with those lipid pools of blue. “Come,” she said, “maybe we can still save Bruce.”


“Bruce?”


“My boyfriend,” the girl sobbed, “he was driving the car and I couldn’t get him out.”


Damnit, Pom’s inner self-proclaimed, a boyfriend, how charming!


Still, if the dude were dead, consoling Edda would then become Pom’s job. A tiny smile played over his lips as he followed the girl into the forest.


In a small clearing next to a huge oak tree lay the rusty remains of an old vehicle.


Little Edda paced back and forth before the wreck wringing her hands.


“Wha?” Pom began reaching for her.


She flung herself against Pom sobbing for all she was worth.


“Bruce was right here,” the girl wept scrubbing her face from side to side against his willing chest.


He hooked a finger under her chin forcing her to look up at him. That face, those eyes, crazy or not, he was going to kiss her.


She actually stopped struggling and accepted his kiss . . . melted into it, but there was a slimy little wriggling place on one lip that caused Pom to move away slightly, his breath coming in quick gasps.


Her mouth smelled foul like festering mushrooms.


A small yellow worm wriggled from a hole under Edda’s full lips and fell to the ground between them.


Pom backed away hitting the canted door of the rusted car wreck.


A greasy green sack fell out revealing old bones, rotting flesh, and plenty of maggots.


Pom looked into the wreck and saw another festering body behind the wheel. He spun back to face Edda.


“You . . .you’re dead,” he said flatly, hardly believing his misfortune. “How charming!”


Edda moved in to snuggle against him again but he backed away from her.


“Are you really dead?” he asked shaking his head with disbelief.


“Yes,” she said and pointed to spot on Pom’s wrist where a small yellow maggot inched out of his white shirtsleeve.


“But so are you.”
End

#fridayflash: Love on the Fringe

Introducing Guest Author: William A Hyland IV

Introducing Guest Author: William A Hyland IV.

Will is my 16 year old nephew who attends Tri-County school in Easthampton, and lives in North Chester, Massachusetts.

I, for one, think he's an excellent writer of horror, but please judge for yourselves devoted reader as we delve into his essay of the damned entitled . . .

Circles of Hell

by

William A Hyland IV

The first circle in Hell is for the people who practice the dark arts. Eternally damned to live in the dark, there is no amount of light for them. As they always embraced the darkness, they are damned to spend eternity in it. The awful reek of death is everywhere and they cannot see the floor of dead bodies they eat from, sleep on, and live with. Every so often the demon Amon returns with more and more corpses to fill the chamber with, while Mephistopheles is known to guard this chamber and torture the souls within, to the point where the souls are knee deep in maggot-covered corpses. The walls constantly leak blood creating a slick surface so the damned can never escape. Permanently trapped in this torture, the lesser demons enjoy wreaking havoc upon the souls here, constantly calling to them in the voices of loved ones from the darkness, flying through the chamber and hitting the souls with clubs. The souls are trapped in a permanent state of mockery. People like Alastair Crowley and H.P. Lovecraft are doomed to this terrible ring of hell.


The next ring is created for the gluttonous, those who overate and overindulged in everything. The people trapped upon this level of hell are doomed to eat the remains of their loved ones all day, until their stomachs literally explode from eating so much. They eat the maggot and rotting flesh-strewn bodies of their closest friends and family. If they try to stop, the demons will begin to devour the damned souls’ flesh, until they resume eating. Everyday the damned souls’ flesh returns and they start the day starving. If they stop even as the demons are devouring them, they will be restrained and the food will be forced down their throats, often to the point where the throat ruptures. Trays and operating tables abound to restrain them. The room has a clean, almost medical smell about it, besides the stench of death. The demons that guard this chamber, while grotesque, have on nurses’ and doctors’ outfits. The arch-demon who guards this chamber is known as Bast, who uses her cat-like claws to rip the souls trapped inside to shreds quite often. Blood is everywhere, filling the surgical equipment, and it’s so thick and heavy you can almost taste it in the air.


The third circle is for thieves, the cowards of the wicked world. Demons only feel the need to torture these souls, the favorite torture being to chop their fingers off over and over again, healing them just to cut their hands off. The demons love this, as the thieves are cowards and the demonic have no respect for the cowardly. The demons make these souls shake and tremble with fear. They despise the people they torture and make them hurt all the time. The smell of blood is dominant here. Anyone who enters this chamber can almost feel the souls tortured pain. The ambient screams can almost be tuned out but never all the way, as they are so plentiful.


The fourth circle is where the pedophiles and rapists reign. Demogorgon guards this chamber, as he is a demon who is so terrible mortals should not even know his name. The pedophiles are doomed to feel permanently disgraced. Their extremities permanently disfigured and healed everyday, only a slight measure of the torture they must endure everyday. For the heinous acts they have committed, no torture is worthy other than to make them feel the pain of their victims. This hall is about torturing the souls trapped inside minds, making them feel the fear their victims felt. The souls are doomed to relive everything their victims have felt. The souls feel this from their victims’ point-of-view being raped and mutilated everyday. The demons even take sick pleasure in this act. The smell of rank sex and sweat is permanent in this chamber. The taste of what the demons have done to them is too terrible to begin describing, but I think you can imagine.


These circles are full of torment and pain, and the victims who enter here never escape. They will be doomed, always to this repeat pain and torture. Once here you will never escape. So maybe you should rethink the way you are living your life, as you may wind up one of these tortured souls one day.



The First Three Circles Of Hell - Epitaph For The Disfigured

Introducing Guest Author: William A Hyland IV

Caretaker (Part 4-Conclusion)

link to part 3     

Caretaker (Part 4-Conclusion)

“He knows,” Polly said to Ma and Pa Street Bum. “But I have the name of his source. I’ll bring her here tonight.”

To Everett, Polly said gently, “We’ll need to make you one of us. Don’t worry; I’ll always take care of you and Grandmother Dodge. I’ll be your caretaker.”

The big woman in the oversized poncho reached a dirty hand under her leopard skin folds and drew out a wriggling slug-worm. The worm-thing oozed iridescent pools of slime across the woman’s arms as she held it like a newborn baby. It continually coiled and uncoiled much like a giant grub upon first exposure to light.

Everett, his slate-blue eyes wide and slightly vacant, seemed mesmerized by the sight of an actual Sluggard. His mouth opened and closed like a giant fish, but only faint clicking noises issued from his tight throat.

The large woman cooed unfamiliar lyrics to her squirming bundle before setting it tenderly beside a stunned-looking Everett.

As the Sluggard inched toward him, much like a giant oozing maggot, Everett seemed to come back to life momentarily. He scrabbled backwards like a crab until his body hit the unmovable concrete wall. His shrill screams became muffled and died out altogether as the Sluggard wrapped his struggling body into bulging iridescent folds of slime.


*******************************


The following week, if anyone in the big city noticed, but unfortunately few ever did, a bent man in threadbare clothing helped an ancient crone hobble down the concrete steps to the subway tunnels below. The man’s face seemed altogether too young to be perched on such a bent and beaten old body. His arresting slate-blue eyes peering warily from rheumy sockets curiously matched those of his companion as the pair shuffled slowly through the crowded subway terminal.

If anyone had paused in their busy, bustling day to listen: they may have heard the old woman whining piteously to her companion. “I’m so hungry, Everett.”

“I know, I know,” her unkempt comrade replied. “The caretaker will be here soon. Then we will eat.”
END

Caretaker was first published in Knightmares Electronic Magazine in 1997.


XLR8R Magazine Presents Convergence: Where Live Meets Electronic

Caretaker (Part 4-Conclusion)