Author: smithaw50

He’d been reckless, arrogant, and cocky.

He knew that now, but he’d been caught and laid out in a makeshift coffin.

The alabaster face with the unnerving copper eyes staring down at him, contemplating the horror of what was happening, and taking pleasure in it, told him there was no chance of rescue or escape.

The cold, damp air held an atmosphere of dark anticipation, and the weak torchlight made the solemnity of his predicament worse. Beads of cold sweat slid into his eyes, and blinking them away took a frightening amount of effort for something that should have been an involuntary reflex.

Paralyzed, he decided to test his mouth; if he could form words, he would beg the thing for his life.

His plea for mercy, to his growing despair, was a keening mewl like a kitten in distress.

The thing’s smile was cold. “No, captain, there will be no mercy given.”

It sat on a stool placed next to his bier, and wiped a marble colored hand across his brow, then flicked the reeking sweat in his eyes.

Unable to turn his head, he only mewled louder.

“Does that hurt?”

He didn’t want to hear himself mewling again, but it hurt like hell.

Taking a deep breath while he still could, he tried to assess what was happening to him.

She told him, and he realized what he was going through was completely open to her, all his thoughts and emotions exposed  through the power of her spell.

“You’re turning to stone, Captain Arlen. It’s a slow spell, so you can feel what’s happening.”

He made a noise something like a gargling sigh, but he was trying to scream.

“I’m going after the rest of your men, too. Don’t worry, you won’t be alone. You should have stopped the slaughter, my friend. You could have ordered them to stop, but you told them to ‘have fun’ instead.

“Are you having fun now?”

She pointed at something in the room. “You can’t sit up, but the light you can still see  over there is an alcove with ensconced torches and a pedestal inside, so you’ll be illuminated for all to see.”

Standing now to look directly at him, she further explained.

“There used to be a circle of statues in this small pantheon, but I’ve had them all removed. The rest of your men, as I collect them, will occupy other pedestals.”

The hardening and turning of the captain’s skin had taken his throat, and was now creeping over his face. He tried with the strength remaining to close his eyes, and couldn’t.

“You’ll all be my stone angels, remaining on the ground for those of mine you sent into the afterlife. And like them, you’ll live forever.”

She touched the last of the flesh on his face and smiled again. “Just not the way you planned.”

He could no longer see, and the last thing he heard were her footsteps echoing the fading of his last heartbeats, and then he heard nothing at all.

I hunt by day, but it’s not the priestess’s fault; I asked to be free of the night curse, but not to be free. She observed my mistake, and as those in the dark arts often do, mocked me for it.

Her mother cursed us to hunt by night. It seemed to be the right thing to do at the time, but it only escalated the war between us and the land dwellers.

In her defense, she only wanted to protect us by having us protect ourselves, because we were a staple to the economy. The land dwellers hunted us for our skin to make their clothing, and our meat to sustain their families.

No one knows if one of us went to the priestess, or if she came to us, but either way the curse was made.

I would have you understand that we did not start this war. The land dwellers would hunt us at night, lanterns bobbing and swinging through the willows, and we’d flee before their guns, but the curse turned the tables.

The priestess made it so we could not only stand, but run, and because we looked so very much like our surroundings, especially in the darkness, the land-dwellers were easy prey. We skinned them, as they did us. We ate them, as they did us.

The blood slicked the mossy waters, and the willows wept indeed, alongside the spirits of those who hunted us.

We’d smile, and by day, we’d walk on fours once more.

In time, the land dwellers, having so many who did not return, came in waves and took us in large numbers by daylight, when we were helpless in our true forms. We did what we could to decimate them within the confines of our reptilian bodies, but they gained the advantage of numbers over time.

The priestess did not account for that, but every spell has its imperfections….

But I survived, and sought her descendant, hearing she was stronger in the dark arts, and entreated her to free me of the night curse. My plan was to run and hide, and seek a quieter place.

There are no quiet places, she told me. But I will help you…

And so, I hunt by day.

But it’s not the priestess’s fault.

A single ray of light shines in the sewer of my life.

The water around me is foul beyond stench, and full of things that nip, suck, and bite, plundering my blood by the droplet.

These chains chafe my wrists, scraping my skin. The rust enters my bloodstream, making my impending death lethal and slow.

They’re heavy as well, and to a starving man, they weigh too much to keep my arms up or moving for a long time.I try to spit, but they’ve given me no water either.

I focus on the light.

“I belong up there. I belong in the light.”

The dark and silent cell mocks my feeble affirmation.

The light, dim as it is, hurts my eyes. Squinting doesn’t help much, but I see a small opening. It is just big enough for my fingers to get through.

You can touch freedom. It is just within your grasp.

I want to, more than anything, but the rational aspect of me tells me it’s a trap.

If you put your fingers out, someone will stomp them, or worse, cut them off.

The ray of light brightened, as if to say, I won’t let that happen. Come on, don’t be afraid.

And so, against everything in me screaming in fear, I reach up.

The light finds my fingers, and then they’re outside; I can feel the firm ground.

There’s a breeze, and warmth from the sun. 

I close my eyes, and picture myself sitting outside, sunning like a lizard, watching people interact with their world, free, happy, busy, and loving, the evil of the day content to rest unseen in the background. I find myself grateful for everything, even my solitude, basking in the sights and sounds around me.

Already, my thin, shaky arms grow tired.

A small clink from the chains tries to call me back from the reverie, like a parent whose willful child has wandered too far past an unseen boundary.

And like a willful child, I ignore the call, determined to stay in the light as long as I can.

The darkness can wait.

I leave it no choice, but it is patient. The fetid air shifts, as if the darkness smiles now, indulgent, content to let the consequence of the danger manifest itself to teach the wayward child.

The darkness does not understand the human will.

I don’t know how long I stood there surrounded by filth, but the light faded, and gravity’s laws soon exacted their cost. I was forced to release my infant grip on the surface above me.

Tomorrow, I may see the light again.

The air shifted, wafted over me, as if the darkness was angry now, carrying my scent to the things that nipped, bit, and sucked.

There will be no more tomorrows for you.

I heard them coming, gibbering chitters echoed, and splashes stirred the foul water.

          They seemed larger when they struck me, voracious, fierce, faster than before. 

          My instinct to flee was useless; these chains now anchored me to the spot where the light had shone.

          I was bleeding, and on my knees from the pain and poisons that flooded me.

There were tears in my eyes, and as I laughed the vermin went into my mouth and began to choke me from the inside. 

         The darkness had its way, took its time with me, but as I lost my sight and voice, and my heart was made prey to the vermin that consumed my flesh, the light appeared in the distance. 

        Come on. Don’t be afraid.

When Mother died, I inherited the circled staff, but the familiars were not yet grown so it kept them in line. I wanted to banish them, but she wouldn’t hear of it.

“They will come to guard you in the dark times, my child.” Those were her last words.

But you were a witch. There was never any other kind of time…

Noises, shadows, scents of carrion, cinnamon, lavender, and things in jars that writhed and crawled, slithered and mewled, with fangs inside of jaws that broke things in half and devoured, and rending claws that disemboweled and severed limbs, and things with glowing eyes that gave me nightmares.

All mine, forever, or for as long as I held the circled staff.

At first, the sun lost warmth, and then the rich, warm yellow brightness I once closed my eyes to feel on my childhood face seemed veiled in perpetual clouds.

I neglected the herbs in the garden. I neglected the cottage.

I neglected my innocence, and the better parts of myself.

And with each passing stage, the familiars grew nearer.

Their oily, rancid spirits oozed into my dirt filled pores, and ethereal cords of attachment formed like spider silk. It was pleasurable, but lethal, like a warm blade pressed to a sensitive, tender spot that made you tingle.

I couldn’t stop it, and didn’t know if I would if I was able.

Soon it didn’t matter anymore, but now, it’s become everything.

We’re all grown now, these familiars and I, a family of strangers, eager to explore the world to see what we can offer it, and take what it has to offer us.

But I must ever guard the staff, for these creatures are ever at my shoulders, and if they take it as their prize the world we know will become one we can neither survive nor escape.

So they wait, even as they follow, and watch, even when they sleep.

It seems Mother cursed me after all.

But then again, she was a witch, and that’s what witches do.

“Should you be doing that?”

“What?”

“Writing about things you know nothing about?”

“Such as…?”

“What it’s like to be a…a thing. A ‘monster,’ for lack of a better term. Something between living and dead, not fully being either? Feeling…” it tilted its head sideways, like a bird, “Well, not quite complete, but not incomplete.”

“Is there a difference?”

“Not so much a difference as a distinction; it’s small, but it’s there.”

I turned in my chair. “Well, no one really knows how that feels, do they?”

My guest smiled and put its chin in its hand. “I would imagine…it’s like being uncertain of everything all the time.”

I gave it some thought. “I would imagine that’s probably an apt description.”

“Thank you. But you haven’t answered my question. Why do you write such things?”

“The mystery of it, I suppose. Humanity, given life, is fascinated with not living. And if things get painful enough, actually yearn not to live anymore. I imagine living forever as a damned thing, whatever its form, could get tedious.”

“It has its moments.”

I chuckled. “Really? And how would you know?”

Again, the enigmatic smile, but this time followed by silence.

“It’s cold in here,” I said. “Is there a window open somewhere?”

I began to shiver.

“Something’s open,” my guest replied, gradually blurring in my vision,

“But it’s not a window…”

They came with chains and horses, fire and steel. Their horses ran over us, their ululations deafened and frightened and panicked us, and we fled like rabbits before hounds, but where we ran, they galloped.

Where we hid, their arrows descended, and where we made a stand, they cut us down as weeds.

There was nothing to be done for it.

The Protector was not here, and our prayers echoed somewhere up there in the marble halls of his celestial palace, unheard.

What few of us managed to escape could only watch the fires, hear their taunts, witness their butchering of our dead, and cry futile tears of anger as we swallowed our screams and sobs to preserve our own lives.

Save one.

She was off in the woods, alone, before a small fire, invoking the very things we’d accused her of consorting with, mating with. They’d make sacrifices of our livestock, and burned  the unwanted ones born out of covenant, conceived in the darkness of disloyal, unholy lust. Their hellish curse spread like a plague among us, to give The Reaver soldiers for his demonic army.

We’d done all we could to burn her, purge her, cleanse her, and turn her to the Protector.

She only pretended piety, though she pretended well.

I alone saw her sacrificial fire, saw her arms raised with a writhing form in her hands, saw her skin shining, sweaty in the firelight. Dancing as she summoned, her eyes closed, her chanting lips fervently pleading with vile promises of servitude.

I couldn’t turn away.

She fell to her knees, and put her arms into the flames up to her elbows.

The fire flared like a meteor striking the sun. Flames puffed and roiled over her bowed head, consuming what she had but moments ago placed inside of it.

Her arms came back unscathed, as smooth and pale as they’d entered.

One by one, the skins of our enemies sloughed off, and dropped like sacks of muddy sand.

The screams were blood-curdling, and the remnants of our forces laid into the meat of them with renewed fervor, butchering them as they collapsed. They offered no more resistance than spring lambs.

She sensed my eyes, and turned. Her own visage now filled me with revulsion, where before she’d stirred me against my will.

Within my mind, her voice was the raspy whisper of the serpent who’d made an enemy of his creator.

“The heavens are empty now.”

The stars flickered, their power waning, and a sudden downpour of cold rain and ice crystals coated all with a hoary frost, extinguishing the flames of her damnation.

I looked at her again. A solitary tear fell from her eye as she disappeared.

I felt the blade against my chest, closed my eyes before sheathing it into my beating heart, and followed her into the void.

Steve and Vanessa were leaving the gallery for the night, a fancy dinner planned; then home, then wine, then each other.

    It had been a long week, and the stress of working together to pull off this exhibit had taken its toll on the both of them. It was either dinner and sex, or they’d wind up strangling each other and (likely) be just as satisfied, but as that would result in handcuffs and jail they took the more pleasant of the two options.

   The weather, thankfully, was cooperating, and the evening air was pleasantly mild. The summer was winding down, and the days were getting shorter, but the nights so far carried no herald of a winter chill.

   Their footsteps were loud in the lofty, high-ceilinged corridor as they walked past a picture gallery full of paintings they were unfamiliar with by a new artist.

    Steve didn’t like them. Vanessa didn’t either, but she found them interesting in a repulsed – fascination kind of way, like rubbernecking at a really bad accident scene.

    Faces of Decay, it was titled, and lived up to its name. Paintings of faces with various things wrong, out of place, or missing, but what was consistent were the wild eyes of panic and desperation in each one, as if they just felt something go wrong with them.

    There was almost a pleading look to them, and with the fading light coming through the ceiling, it gave the eyes a brightness not evident in the day.

   Vanessa couldn’t help but shiver, even though Steve was walking in lockstep beside her.

   They both looked pointedly at the floor, avoiding looking at the ghastly portraits, feeling the weight of the shining eyes following them, judging them for not helping, for leaving them behind.

   The anticipation of their date was dulled somewhat by their fright, so they hurried through, each trying to be brave.

   Vanessa stopped short.

   “What is it?” Steve asked.

   “There’s no guard on duty.”

   “So?”

   “So the doors lock automatically…”

   “And we’re stuck in here. Shit!

   They pulled out their phones and walked to the security desk, rummaging through it to see if there was a contact number or card they could use to call the security company and see what happened.

    There were numbers galore, but it was after hours, or between shifts, and no one was answering.

    Evening shadows oozed across the floor as the sun went down.

    “What do we do?” Vanessa said.

    “We have keys to offices, food, and water. We’ll just keep trying the company, or maybe we can just call the cops.”

    “They can’t help us without knowing the lock codes.”

    “True, but they can help contact the company, maybe send an officer to pick up one of the guards or something.”

    Vanessa considered it, but had nothing better to offer. “Okay.”

    Steve walked off and made the call.

    Vanessa picked that moment to try and brave the gallery once more.

    They’re just paintings. It’s just their eyes. Their eyes are painted, and have no power.

    As Steve chatted with the police dispatcher, Vanessa stopped in front of the first painting she saw.

    The woman in it was brunette, hair up, pretty brown eyes, a pert nose, and lips that were twisted as if she’d been tortured; they were scarred and bleeding, so she wasn’t smiling.

   That’s really sick, Vanessa thought. Why disfigure the face…?

   As she looked at the painting, the brown eyes of the painting’s subject seemed to take on a lighter cast, and the woman slowly blinked, eyes unfocused, as if she were just waking up.

   Vanessa took a step back, hands over her mouth, her thoughts racing.

   It’s dark now, this isn’t happening, you’re just scared of being stuck overnight, the painting isn’t real, and nothing-nothing-nothing you’re seeing now is really going on.

   The woman’s eyes fastened on Vanessa, who took a step back, her own eyes widening, somewhere between panic and curiosity.

    You’re tired, Vanessa. Steve will make this all okay, later, when we’re in bed mauling each other.

    The woman’s eyes widened, as if surprised to see someone there.

    That awful, scarred and twisted mouth was trying to smile.

    Vanessa looked for Steve; he was in front of another painting, one where half the man’s face was drooping and cut. He was gazing at Steve imperiously, as if the living man was nothing more than a towel to dry his painted hands.

    The darkness deepened, and Vanessa called Steve’s name, but the only answer she saw was the eyes of the painting move in her direction.

     She wanted to go to run, but she’d have to pass more paintings, and now, the whites of their eyes were glowing the colors of street lights, reflected on the polished tile floor.

    Steve came beside her. “They’re on the way.”

    His presence was a comfort for her. “Good. I’m imagining things now that it’s dark.

    “You’re not imagining anything.”

    She looked at him as he stepped in front of her.

    “Steve?”

     Not-Steve laughed and shook his head, the whites of his eyes shining points of light onto the top of Vanessa’s blouse,

   “He’ll be back tomorrow, Vanessa. In the meantime…” The light traveled over Vanessa’s face as he looked at the woman in the painting.  “Join me, my dear.”

    Vanessa’s vision went dark for a long moment, and when it came back, she was staring at the marble floor, staring out at herself standing next to Steve, her painful smile now framed in perfectly fine lips  as she took his arm, and they passed through the gallery doors.

    She wanted to scream, but her lips were twisted, scarred, and bleeding, and as her eyes widened in panic, two points of light reflected from them onto the polished tile floor