October 2020 -- A whole Heap of HORROR -- No31 -- Happy Hallowe'en

Happy Hallowe'en 

today I have a story for you that was published a couple of years back in Twisted Tales. It is the last Hallowe'en Horror but I will be posting an antidote to Hallowe'en tomorrow so I hope you will join me again -- and maybe even follow me in my own wee Oonahverse for more FREE READS in the future.

No Contest

He turned quickly on hearing a crash and found the pumpkin staring at him. It was still wearing the face he’d just carved, but the expression was altered, and it was not alone. It seemed that every pumpkin in the patch had arrived at his door.
“How in the Devil’s name…” he began then stopped.
In the devil’s name…In the devil’s name…In the devil’s name… His words echoed back.

The door of his Last-a-Lifetime Security Shed had been ripped off its hinges. Kit automatically reached for one of his tools from the bench behind him. Instead of the sturdy wooden handle, his hand touched something wet and grainy.
“Ugh!” He shuddered. Looking down he saw the cold innards and seeds, the open womb of a pumpkin, but it smelled like blood. Hastily he wiped his hand on his apron.

In the lurid evening light he saw pumpkin faces. He recognised them, every single one, going back years. Competition after competition won. This shed had for years been his trophy house for countless certificates and rosettes, Best Fiery Face, five Bronze and Silver Pumpkin Medallions, The Golden Grin Pumpkin Award and the prestigious Gold Glow. The hobby had become an obsession, the obsession an addiction and the addiction a curse. He had to win and he’d sacrifice anything. He’d put his very soul into growing the best, and attaining the top prize. He tolerated no rivals.

“Remember me?”
The voice, mellow and dark, somehow familiar, chilled him, transfixed him. He turned, this time slowly. It couldn’t be.
“Hello, Kit. I see you’ve not changed a bit.”
Kit squinted in the diminishing light. It was indeed his former friend and one time arch rival, Jim but his head was a pumpkin head, the very same Kit had stolen from him, the award winning Golden Grin, now crowned with a halo of candlelight.
“Did I make a good mulch, Kit?” The pumpkin eyes scanned the trophies. God knows how many Kit had cheated him out of before the confrontation that final, fateful Hallows’ Eve. “Seems you did fairly well out of your bargain with Beelzebub. Hope it was worth it.”

It was dark except for glinting eyes that flickered all around.
“Pumpkindred,” said Jim in declamatory tone, “Members of the Patch, behold our tormentor! Kit Karver.”
A clamour of voices chorused, high and low, remonstrating, hissing, jeering. And Kit realised, in that moment, where his tools had gone. They were in the hands of those he’d fed, cared for, nurtured, killed and mutilated over decades. Medium saws, fine tooth saws, razor-edged scoops, small, medium and large carving loops for peeling rind, double sided sculpting tools, pokers, wheels and sharp, heavy duty drills, hole and circle punchers. Kit was a professional. He knew their use only too well.
“In the Devil’s name, Kit?” repeated Jim.
Kit opened his mouth but found his voice would make no sound but a high squeak.
“Very well, pumpkins, let’s to work!”
His vocal chords were the first thing they cut.

October 2020 -- A whole Heap of HORROR -- No30

Today a trilogy of unconnected poems -- perhaps something for everyone. The first relates to the Northumberland coast just north of Bamburgh (click the title link to see more.) 

The second is an actual nightmare I had during lockdown earlier this year. 👀  

The last is -- entertaining.

The White Stag 

 The white stag stands

in two dimensions

between land and sea, sea and sky,

air and rock.

Whoever placed him there

'twixt myth and reality,

understood those boundaries

to which we must adhere,

taboos, thresholds

that should not be crossed,

portals to the past that seamless, disappear,

protecting everything the modern world has shed.

But on some moonless night, unseen he turns,

skips lightly through a crevice to that other place,

to dance with myths and legends and return

at first light to the sight of mortal men.

The white stag placed here just beyond our reach

for us to yearn, and learn

the light and darkness

mysteries may teach.

Washing

Washing my hands

Washing my hands in a sink

Washing my hands in a sink full of birds

in a sink full of birds rainbow bright

rainbow bright colours

rainbow bright colours fading

colours fading and dying and the birds

and the birds begin to die

birds begin to die in my hands

my hands covered in faded feathers

hands covered in faded feathers and blood.

Washing hands in a sink of dead birds, faded feathers and blood.

I look in the mirror

but the mirror is empty.

Living with Logic

If I hear a thud on the bedroom floor

the creaking of an upstairs’ door

or footsteps on the landing coming close.

When I hear that tread upon the stair

that makes me call out, ‘Who is there?’

if I suspect in short, that it’s a ghost,

I’ll tell no one. I won’t insist

my husband call an exorcist

or that a priest be brought to calm my fears.

His scepticism would enlist

the aid of a psychiatrist

besides

we’ve lived in a bungalow for years.

October 2020 -- A whole Heap of HORROR -- No29

 

Blast

Sylvia knelt down and held the man’s face in her hands. He was soaked in blood, whether his own or that of others, and rain and tears streaked his face with grime and falling dust.

“You’ll be all right,” she lied. And then, as loud as she could shout over the cacophony of vehicles and din of confusion, “Is there a doctor somewhere? A medic?

Paramedic?”

The man looked up at her, his eyes wide with terror. He could make no sound with half his jaw exposed. She called out, “This man needs...” But her voice was swallowed up in the welter of surrounding noise and when she looked again, the man didn’t need anything. She stood up, and stumbled towards the next heap of offal-coloured rags.

She’d been in a café and could still taste coffee on her tongue. She never saw a flash or heard a blast. It was like she’d been propelled out of the chair and then the world had begun to fall slowly about her and she’d run out — except there was no “in” to run out of. The roof had gone. All the roofs had gone. The shopping Mall had gone and the street was filled with rubble and bits.

When the numbness wore off, she became aware that emergency services were arriving and wandered over to the briefing. There must be something for her to do. Her nursing experience might be invaluable here. Triage could make the difference between life and death.

They didn’t seem much interested in medical skills but they needed lots of people to go around and just, “pick up the pieces,” they said — not a nice job. Volunteers were issued with yellow, heavy-duty rubber gloves, plastic bags and a town centre map. Anything from a tie pin to a spleen they said — anything that could be used for DNA or other identification and if you could mark down where you found it — even better.

That’s what she’d been doing when she found the man — the man whose shattered face would haunt her forever. The stench of death and dust clogged her nostrils. The rain trickled down inside her clothes and into the gutters in eddies of mud and blood.

On she plodded through it all, searching now in the twilight, wondering if anyone was going to bring her a torch. A few torches had winked on at the other side of this pile of rubble and a street lamp glimmered beyond the area of devastation, as if nothing had happened.

In its weak glow, she saw something — a hand. She yelled for someone to come and help. “I think there’s a woman buried under here!” Surely the woman wouldn’t still be alive after all these hours. But you heard such amazing survival stories. There was always hope.

Perhaps, if she could move some of this debris... She touched the hand to determine whether there was any warmth in it. As she reached in the hand came away. It wasn’t a woman, just a hand — all that remained.

A ring on the finger flashed in sudden torchlight from behind. It was clearly visible and very distinctive — shaped like a daisy, four petals of gold and four of platinum, a central raised crown and five small diamonds — why, it was just like hers.

She removed one yellow glove to check the similarity, then looked for an answer in the face of the fellow carrying the torch. But his gaze and the light went through her like the realization that there was no hand inside the glove.

“Blast” ©2008 Oonah V Joslin. Previously published in Bewildering Stories

October 2020 -- A whole Heap of HORROR -- No28

 

Henderson’s Hand

For my sister Esmé and Oliver Kilbourn (of the pitman painters) whose work inspired this dark tale of light, and for all those who make light and beautiful, the dark and ugly parts of this world.

His mother screamed and wept when he was handed to her and immediately gave him back to the midwife. “I don’t want it,” she said. “Take it away. I won’t look at it again.”

And so Jim Henderson was placed in an institution to be raised and educated.

“Let’s pretty that up for you.” Smikkers was a plain boy who had nothing remarkable about him except that he was lanky and manipulative. His side-kick, Garrety Grey had taken paints from the art room and gave the gang a tube each. Petri and Bill Bidder held Henderson and muffled his screams for help while the others pulled off his mitt and smeared paint on the appendage that passed for a hand. Smikkers stood back, paring his nails with a vicious looking knife. Henderson was twisting like a python but by the time he got free, they’d claried his hand in oil paints. A teacher rang the bell for class and they ran like hell.

“Who did this, Henderson? Where’s your mitt?” demanded the Master in a tone that conveyed such displeasure that Jim wasn’t sure whether the teacher’s concern was for the assault, the paint theft or merely the sensibilities of other pupils with regard to his deformity, so he refused to tell. Anyway, it would only make things worse next time. There was always a next time.

But Henderson knew his left hand couldn’t help being ugly and he bore the disfigurement as a badge of individuality. He kept the three claws of fused finger bone and purplish-brown flesh hidden so that others wouldn’t have to see its ugliness and so that it would not have to witness theirs: for Jim had seen ugliness, in the faces of bullies and friends alike. Ugliness and more; hatred, loathing, fear epitomised in all its sharp focus, any time the hand was exposed to view. In his heart he knew with a certainty others could never perceive, that all ugliness comes from within, as does all appreciation of perfection.

At every opportunity, when he was alone, he allowed his hand to experience beauty. Out in the meadow, Henderson would remove his glove, bathe his hand in Bethesda-like springs, allow it to touch the soft petals of celandines and buttercups, poppies, gentians, purple clover and meadowsweet, feathery grasses and ripening berries. Always he would take out his paints and pad and place a brush between the thumb and first pronged hook and his hand would paint the delicate blooms in shades of pastels. It painted glittering streams and brooks that seemed almost to burble up from the page; trees and field margins, hedges and thrushes’ eggs. Jim had nothing to do with it. The hand simply and expressively painted what beauty felt like in a style all its own.

The curator was clearly impressed by the folio on offer but was just as evidently sceptical that the painfully shy and deformed creature he saw before him could have done such work.

“Each canvas is signed: by the Hand of Henderson. Pray, why is that?”

Jim explained that the hand did all the work itself with little or no direction from him other than provisioning paint and tactile inspiration.

“They are very -- textural and the light is -- interesting but not quite right. Where is the light source -- for instance – in this one?”

Jim could give only one answer. “Each thing carries its own light. Any light there is, in fact all light comes from within.”

“And you painted these yourself?”

“As I explained…”

“Single handed.”

“I am sorry I wasted your time,” spat Jim and he took his paintings and left.

A few canvasses sold to private owners but not enough to ever make a living. Henderson became more and more isolated and reclusive. He locked himself away in a poorest market area of the town and there he forgot and was forgotten.

Decades passed. The buildings were condemned and due to be demolished.

“What’s behind this door, Felix?” asked the site boss.

“Cellar, I think. Does it matter? It’ll all be gone tomorrow.”

“Break it down. Better make sure there’s nobody in there beforehand.”

With one blow the door shattered in a sudden burst of light.

“Cor blimey, Boss!” Felix reeled backward. “Would you look at this!”

Henderson was discovered. There in the basement, surrounded by works of astounding beauty. He had long since run out of food, water and materials but his hand still painted frenetically, covering the walls in portraitures of light, so that the dank space was ablaze in a triumph of luminosity. Slumped in the corner, a bundle of corrupt flesh and rag was all that was left of the corporeal remains of Jim Henderson. But the Hand would permit no one to remove the lifeless corpse of he, who had shown the only kindness it had ever known. It grew, stretched out and barred the way of all who approached: a ghastly clawed guardian.

And so they sealed the door to that glorious cellar and only when the site was razed and the natural light of the sun blazed in, were the dust of his last vestiges and the works of Henderson’s hand released together, to become part of the light of the universe at large.

Bewildering Stories 2015

October 2020 -- A whole Heap of HORROR -- No27

Garra Rufa Revenge

By Oonah V Joslin

“Sylvie,” she called. Where was the girl? “Be a darling and fetch me another coffee–this one’s gone cold.”

Sylvie didn't mind about the coffee, but her name was Helen.

“Sylvie, would you mind awfully, darling, bringing me an extra towel?” This was supposed to be a luxury spa! One wanted one's moneys worth.

Patricia fetched the towel. 

“Just a little higher, Sylvie... Teensy bit higher? No, no, girl towards my neck... Ah that's better. My left shoulder has been quite tight lately.”

Not as tight as your arse, thought Gillian.

Massage, manicure, pedicure, spa treatments–this was her weekly pamper time and Linda Lux was used to the best of treatment. Why, between luncheons, bridge afternoon tea and various cultural persuits, one barely had a moment to oneself. She didn’t suffer from any particular ailment but she liked to look her best at all times and was determined her feet remain smooth and soft, so having kicked off her Gucci spa-shoes, she relaxed with a magazine as the little carp did their work.

She didn’t believe in all this tosh about how the fish might get sick or die from lotions and chemicals on the skin. She scoffed at the notion that tank conditions might not be ideal or consistent from spa to spa. And as for exploitation… this was a beauty parlour, for God’s sake, not an aquarium, and they were mere fish. It wasn’t as if they were intelligent or aware – rather like Sylvie, she surmised.

When time was up, Linda Lux put aside the article she’d been reading, looked down into the water – and screamed. Her feet – her feet were in shreds. Skin hung like rags from white bone. Unable to stand up, she screamed and screamed, Sylvie! Sylivie!! But no assistance came. There was no sign of blood but the fish were still feeding and she was above her ankles in water and still no one came -- no one at all.

Copyright: © 2011 Oonah V Joslin

October 2020 -- A whole Heap of HORROR -- No26

Sometimes people do the right things for all the wrong reasons

Tools of the Trade (2012 Every Day Fiction) 

I had lost two apprentices in the last clash — seen it all before — the mangled mess of torn flesh and splintered wood; bloody stumps of blown off arms and legs cut through with shot. Cannon will do that on board ship — ours or theirs, makes no difference. As carpenter it was for me to repair the damage to timbers and spars.

I seen young boys; powder monkeys — nearly cut in two by our own shot, feet crushed from the recoil of cannon. Lefty lost an eye from a spelk no bigger than a needle. Cool as anything, Ol’ Lefty picks the eye up and looks at it with the good’un. Takes it above and throws it overboard, he does — says a prayer and carries on fighting. Aye, they were a hardy crew.

My billet was right next to the white doors of the surgeon’s bay. I lay awake oftentimes unable to ignore the cries, moans, death rattles of them poor souls lying on makeshift beds or in the square canvas hammocks. Their truncated limbs were thrown over without ceremony — not like Lefty’s eye. Our surgeon, Swift, had no time for niceties. Crew held ‘em down and he sawed ’em short in eight minutes flat — no matter the weather. Sometimes there was nothing to do but cauterize, give ’em drink and wait for ’em to die — an hour — a day — sometimes several if they were unlucky.

There was a brief exchange of fire early on that day, as I recall — just a skirmish. I’d been repairing timbers aft and was rubbing my saw with oiled cloth when I heard the Cap’n being shouted on from his state room above. There was much commotion below decks, powder being got and guns armed, most of the crew being caught unawares by the hour.

It was Lefty came to find me.

“You ’ave to come quick, Master Carpenter. Cap’n says so.”

“Whatever can Cap’n want with me?”

“Quick, ’e says.”

I went to pick up my tools.

“No need to bring aught,” says Lefty, “’s urgent!”

“Well, if I ‘ave no belt…”

I followed on behind Lefty and the boat pitching an’ tossing — we must ’ave looked like a couple o’ drunken fools lurching side to side.

Lefty led up and for’ard through the confusion and into the medical bay. The Cap’n was in attendance — no more than ’alf dressed, he was. The ship’s surgeon lay on the wooden table screwing at a tourniquet on his right arm. The lower part was all but off. Clean through to the bone.

“Carpenter — I’m told you know what’s what,” said the Cap’n.

I looked from one to the other of the faces gathered round that bench — the truth gradually dawning on me of what it was I had been called down to do.

The surgeon winced and gritted his teeth. He looked me straight in the eye. “Harry,” he said, as never used my name, “I need a man with a good saw-arm.”

I felt myself blench in response.

Cap’n Morton nodded to the medical chest — a low long box of instruments. “Hold him,” he ordered the four in attendance. “Give him a belt to bite on.”

They forced an unwilling Swift back onto the table.

“C’mon. Just make it quick, man,” said Swift.

Many’s the time I’d watched. Well — it was my turn now. I gave the surgeon a stiff drink and then, swallowing one myself, I took the round knife and wet the blade with brandy. “One for the blade,” I joked to alleviate my fears but I sent up a silent prayer just the same and with one single movement, sliced through the remaining muscle to the bone. The Cap’n himself exposed the bone. I bound that with a leather strap as I’d seen done and sawed with all my might as at a hardwood plank and trying all the time not to be aware of human flesh beneath my blade. Swift made not a whimper, good man, the whole time, though I felt his body shudder under shock. I tossed the limb into a bucket, bound the stump together with linen cloth and then, and I think you can forgive me for it, I passed out.

Later Swift congratulated me. “Six minutes!” he said admiringly.

“Fear is oft times hasty,” said I.

“Well, I am thankful for it,” he replied.

Strange it seems, to have sawn off an arm that sawed so many others. Swift made a full recovery and for the rest of that voyage, I was both carpenter and surgeon under his command for he could not do much in that way with only one arm. I never lost an amputee at sea and I always gave the blade a libation for good luck. Which goes to prove — we should always look after the tools God gives us.

October 2020 -- A whole Heap of HORROR -- No25

 You can hear me reading DARKLING on Facebook

Darkling

I love Imogen. I love her. And I sense that I was meant to. I love the way she pats her hair and adjusts her skirts just so, the way she bounces into the room, all of a flutter, like a tiny moth. There is a degree of elegance and poise in her demeanour that one seldom encounters in the modern world as far as I can see, and she has a way of laughing that reminds me of rainwater on a spring day. Her manner is necessarily aloof but then again, I think she takes every opportunity to smile towards me. She cannot be wholly unaware of my presence; indeed she cannot. And with each passing day I become more convinced that she cannot truly love that pretender, Carnaro.

Look at him; silly peacock strutting arrogantly back and forth across the room. I listen to his diatribes on issues political and scientific. He holds forth as if he were a true man of the world – that popinjay! What makes him think such stuff would interest her? She is young and wants to laugh and dance. But she sits and gives attention to his sermonising. No doubt her breeding dictates a degree of politesse.

I adore this room. The furnishings are expensive. Some of them I chose myself, but their colours are less vibrant than before. I see my garden there in summer bloom through the French windows and catch glimpses of the hallway through the doorway to the right. In this way I watch the world come and go.

“Do you think we might go out tonight?” Imogen smiles straight through me and arranges a wisp of auburn hair that has tumbled from its restraint. Her green eyes are deep set and her skin is milky pale. But no; her gaze is fixed some distance beyond me.

Here he comes to put his arms around her. I see him over her shoulder – almost as he sees himself.

“You know I have accounts to see to, dear.”

I hear Arturo in his voice. I see the old Carnaro in his face. He looks at his own image, not at his beautiful wife -- in just the way Arturo used to do. Cannot he see how I despise him and his glib modern ways? Cannot he feel the singeing heat of my animosity? How can he refuse her so small a thing? I would give her everything she desired and all the world besides. I could never bear to hear her sigh from a moment’s boredom or see one tear fall from her precious eyes. I would have only smiles from Imogen, were she mine. I love her.

Could I but project my hatred all in a single instant of eternal rage, I might burst through this silvered hell; reach out my hands from within the mirror and place them about his selfish throat, as I did with Arturo, as I did with Borlianti and Stephan.

I know I must bide my time -- await the appointed hour to work my dark art; but it will come.

I watch her walk away disconsolate and take up her book to read. I watch him return to his dull papers, and they remain silent.

At length that time comes as it always must, when they turn off the lights and I am left alone -- here in the dark, without a room until the morrow; for I live in borrowed light as all we darklings do. Try as I might I can see nothing. They take the light from me each night and I have nought left until the dawn. My world collapses into two dimensions and I become mere surface, and here I wait.

But I remember a time when flames danced brightly in this room and still there is fire in my soul. Soon now, very soon, I will find a way to make her mine while he looks on despairing from this treacherous glass, as I have done these many, many years.

October 2020 -- A whole Heap of HORROR -- No 24

 Here in the UK we're about to experience that yearly time quake that marks the end of what we laughingly call British Summer Time. 😏 So I thought I would post a weird Time piece, especially for this year in which we all seem to have missed time and yet had too much of it! 

The Last Syllable of Recorded Time

Dr. Geetler had a feeling of deep déjà vu like he’d had this same feeling of déjà vu a couple of times before. The cornea scan, the buzz of the door, the antiseptic white of the corridor, Teal Cunningham saying “How’re you doin’ man?” then the green screen, the pulse. It had something to do with the pulse.

He stared at the data as if it hurt, the way he stared at the data every day since he’d stared at it on July 11, 2011, the first time he’d managed to measure the quake. It had taken a while for him to recognise the effects because of the nature of the anomaly.

First of all it was virtually undetectable, and he’d decided to measure it only because of this persistent feeling. He managed to “see” it only by shooting lasers at the event horizon -- the term is usually reserved for black holes, but it seemed to fit the bill. The pulse hit the planet in a wave in all directions simultaneously and it apparently did nothing -- except that Geetler was sure it did. Only nobody noticed it.

For a long time even Geetler didn’t notice. At first it was just that feeling of déjà vu. He sold his house to set up research because no evidence, no money; no money, no evidence. He built the pulsometer and logged an event each time it happened.

On the 13th another one hit, then the 17th, 19th, 23rd, 29th. Each time the pulse quickened by minutes. Geetler knew he’d recorded that data but there was no standing record; only the last reading on July 31st. And so he had to wait a further six years for more proof and sure enough, 02.02.17 it came and on 03.02, 05.02 and always it quickened by an increasing factor of primes.

But once more, all the data, except that for the last reading, disappeared. Only his belief in his own sanity and in the veracity of the scientific method held him on track. He believed it to be there. He’d created the instrument therefore he knew he’d taken readings. It was all about pulses and primes. But who would believe him on such scant evidence?

People, it seemed, were oblivious. A quake would come and wipe out the previous hours and they’d all start again as if time just flowed on as normal until the next prime pulse. Geetler had taken to writing data by hand when he realised that computers invariably reset themselves after each time pulse, as if the pulse had never existed.

Then he discovered that he, too, was affected. No matter what method he used, only the last data in any pulse sequence survived. He took to regressive extrapolation. He knew what the scientific community would call that: falsifying data, they’d say. But at last he had built up solid database from each final event for the past three decades, from 2017 to 2053, but that wasn’t much. If he went public they’d think him mad.

There was absolutely nothing anyone could do about the prime pulses anyway, and even Geetler wasn’t sure what would be the final outcome of these time quakes. The number of minutes between pulses, like the dates, followed the pattern of primes. Today the quakes were down to hours apart. At least he thought it was today. The pulses were getting faster.

He wondered what might happen. Would everyone repeat the final 23 minutes of their lives, then repeat the final 19, then 17 and so on down to the final 2? And what then? Would the pulses play out in milliseconds? Nanoseconds? Would time reset itself again -- this time for good? Would the final quake leave Earth to its history? Or would they all grind to an irrevocable halt, all motion ended, time suspended for eternity?

Geetler stared at the data. It had been updated just three minutes ago. He shut his eyes, took in a deep, and perhaps a final breath and waited, and wished, and hoped he was gloriously deluded.

Why not browse some more of my Bewildering Stories Archive

October 2020 -- A whole Heap of HORROR -- No 23

First published in Microhorror, this one came from an actual nightmare I had -- and you think you've got problems... 👀  If any of you wants to undertake a Freudian analysis, keep sctumm about the results... 

Après Longtemps: A Troubadour’s Return

By Oonah V Joslin

Le Patron du Café Solutré called them Gringons. “Only thirteen hands,” he said. “Camargues are born black. Later they turn white but keep a dark undercoat. They require no stabling or shelter of any kind. They are docile enough for children yet strong enough to herd bulls. Tenacious. How are you called, Monsieur…?”

“Cathar,” I told him.

“Then,” he said, “You are come home!” He kissed me roughly on both cheeks and began his story with words of warning. “But, méfiez-vous, mon brave.”

No village now stands near that cemetery. The spongy bog has swallowed history and shrouded it in protective mists. Deserted and overgrown within its walls la Cimetière des Gardians lies desolate and though I had reason to be there that autumn morning, I experienced a certain trepidation and shuddered as I wandered amongst its nameless tombs. They were of marble: Incarnat du Languedoc elaborately carved. It is a striking stone, its splattered white and crimson veins all too redolent of splintered bone and spilt blood.

I approached the vast monument upon a central plinth; bare but for a short inscription in Occitan which, of course, I could not read. 500,000 souls wiped out by two generations of inquisition. Nobody knew how many lay here or who they were.

“Kill them all. God will know His own,” said the Abbot of Béziers.

Catholic, Cathar, Jew, it mattered not, as long as this “Synagogue of Satan” was erased and with it that heretical obscenity–Occitan.

Others fled as wandering troubadours, some members of my line no doubt. Faidits ou morts–a brutal choice. The faithful horses, held by strong bonds of loyalty to folk that would take no oath nor swear any fealty, remained close, watching over the dead.

Then one night these “manades,” semi-feral once, now fully wild, ran amok–driven mad by lonely, protracted grief. In their madness they stampeded. Their eyes, they say, shone gold amid the night. One bit another. The bitten one turned red. One by one they joined in hideous blood-rage. They broke the gates and rampaged through streets that had been settled by their herdsmen’s killers; turning all colors, red to gold to blue, purple and green. (Camargues are not white.) Skeletal they were, with yellowed teeth and frightened eyes. They were distraught and savage in revenge. Their teeth ripped flesh, tore sinew, and any that survived the bite were cursed to die, days, sometimes weeks later of crazed fevers that terrorized their fitful dreams; their upturned eyeballs became deathly white. And when that night of hatred was at end, there were no more white horses to be seen. But in the graveyard stood, atop the plinth, a woman with flowing hair, who rode upon a pure white unicorn of finest marble of a type not found in Languedoc or nearby. Its single horn speared the surrounding miasma.

And if I say I began to believe, I had no choice. I heard them. Heard them whinnying close by: les manades. I dursn’t look behind. I perceived as it were a ripple, a wispy change in the mists, like warm breaths disturbing the morning airs. I heard a trampling of impatient hooves and knew they stood behind me. The mists changed color with an eerie glow: red here, a livid green, a subtle gold to purple then cold blue. It was, I told myself, but the residual shades of an autumn sunrise–only I knew better. The sun ought to be high by now. They were waiting for me to reveal whether I was friend or foe. I had no language I could use with them. If I uttered French they’d surely trample me. These were horses of Occitan and I knew little of my kin. I pitied all the souls of that tormented place.

And now a single drop of purest water dripped from the horn of the marble unicorn onto my head. I looked up. The horses reverted back to myth and mist. “Perhaps,” I thought, “the Lady knows her own.”

Copyright: © 2011 Oonah V Joslin

October 2020 -- A whole Heap of HORROR -- No 22

 

Sown On the Wind

By Oonah V Joslin

Lil wiped her hands on a bloody apron. She smelt of bird guts.

“Come just as soon as I could,” said Laroux.

“It’s happened again,” she said. “And it ain’t no fox. The hens is scattered all over and the house is wrecked. You’ll have to build me a new one.”

She had some gall, the old girl. Laroux was a neighbor and as far as he was concerned, he didn’t have to do a goddam thing he didn’t want to. He scratched his head. It was the darnedest thing. Not a hen in sight and the shed skewed at a drunken angle about to topple right over. He could shore it up for now.

“Musta bin a tornado, Lil.”

“Weren’t no dang tornado. Didn’t touch nothin’, 'cept the bird house.”

“Well, I can’t figure it,” said Laroux. “Didn’t you see nothin’?”

“Heard somethin’ like a wind but time I got out, there weren’t nothin’ to see but gone birds.”

Lil had got rid of the big livestock she couldn’t manage on her own. At first she kept wild fowl, geese, ducks, turkeys and capons just like she’d always done. Now she was down to hens and capons. With Christmas approaching they were her best hope of an income.

Laroux did a good job. Lil rounded the birds up and put down extra feed she could ill afford. “Don’t y’all disappear now,” she said as she padlocked the door. “Tomorrow’s slaughter day.”

She hastened indoors out of the cold and dark. The smell of chicken broth was as appetizing as the smell of chicken guts was repugnant but you had to do the guts to get the broth. Lil had a strong stomach.

She woke in the middle of the night to a sound like a honking wind. It was moving eerie and swift towards the house. She stood by the window with the shotgun. And then she saw it. A mighty flock of geese, greater than any single flock she’d ever seen or heard, honking and flapping like a force of nature. She got a couple of shots off but they never wavered from their path right over the house. As she pulled down the sash window one slammed into it. One for the pot.

Next morning there was no sign of any of them. Damned foxes were doing alright, Lil reckoned. She went out to see to the hens. Only there were no hens. There was no hen house. It had gone. Gone–as in disappeared altogether. She phoned Laroux.

“I tell ya, Lil, I never knew a tornado be this vindictive.”

“Weren’t no tornado, Laroux. It was geese, I tell ya. Real mean geese too. Came at the house like they was on a mission. You musta heard them. Why, they flew right over your house too.”

“Never heard nothin’, Lil, I swear.”

“Well I’m ready for ’em tonight.” She propped the gun by the window.

“You holler if you need anything, you hear?”

Lil heard that honking sound in the dark and then the flap of wings like a rush of wind louder and louder, building and building until the house cowered under it. Lil waited until her aim was certain. She fixed on the first target–saw right through it, just like it wasn’t there. Fixed on a second–“What the…?” She targeted bird after transparent bird, recognizing every beak she’d forced, every breast she’d plucked, every neck she’d cleaved. Insubstantial as air, yet powerful as a storm they flew straight at the window where she stood–unstoppable.

Laroux found Lil next day in a pool of blood, the gun never fired. Sharp daggers of window pane had severed her head near off and the hair had been plucked from her bloodied scalp. A shard of broken glass had ripped her belly open so that guts spewed out onto the floor. He witnessed a white cloud moving away east against the wind, unlike any cloud he’d ever seen. Death’s avenging arrow. A gaggle of ghosts.

Copyright: © 2007 Oonah V Joslin

October 2020 -- A whole Heap of HORROR -- No 21

 Today I'm reposting one from a little archive of my stories in Every Day Fiction and of course feel free to nip over there, and browse.

Sleight of Hand

The audience was silent, the auditorium hushed. Amidst the velvet blackness of the stage, a single white glove appeared, its supple fingers slowly unfolding a fan of playing cards. A second glove emerged from the darkness and the fan, thrown towards it, disappeared. The gloves proudly displayed their empty palms to the delighted crowd. As the hands came together and rose, a pure white dove materialized, then was released into the rafters, to the sound of ‘ooohs’ and ‘aaahs’.

Astonished gasps followed the visitation of a third hand. Try as they might, the watchers could see no one on the stage let alone someone possessed of three hands. A jeweled goblet, lit with an eerie flame, was held aloft in the cupped gloves, while the single glove drew a knife from nowhere and heated the sharp blade in the fire. The dagger lunged into the empty space before it and in its stead, a blood red scarf appeared, swirling round and round with graceful ebullience. A fourth hand joined the other three on stage, all four engaging in a kind of dance, continually meeting and parting, producing showers of silk scarves of every hue.

Finally the gloves on stage ripped away the black hoods hiding the faces of their animators, and then the black robes, uncovering dazzling costumes of red and gold underneath. The stage lights revealed no mechanisms or mirrors; no chicanery of deceit. It was a perfect illusion. Removing the gloves and casting them to one side, The Great Dexter and his beautiful assistant Sinistra took deep bows to appreciative applause.

In the dressing room, Tom Dexter and his wife Eliza fought like cat and dog. The furious arguments rang through the endless corridors and stairways that made up the backstage of many a provincial theatre, and were always about the same things–billing, venues, tour dates, cheap hotels, missed anniversaries.
“It isn’t as if we can’t afford better,” she complained.
“We could afford better if you’d stop squandering money on fancy jewelry and entertaining your bloody entourage!”
“Well, maybe if I got some attention from you!”
Why was he such a slave driver, she wanted to know, demanding endless rehearsals and forever adding some old, tired trick to the act?

Most of their performance involved the standard trappings of any magician’s trade–prestidigitation, vanishments and mind reading. This latest departure, into what amounted to mime, had been Eliza’s idea and she was never slow to point that out. There was even talk of them breaking onto the London circuit because of this innovation. Their agent had suggested a new poster:

Dexter & Sinistra
With their
Astonishing Magical Gloves.

Tom regarded it as a waste of money, and didn’t quite see how she deserved equal billing. Furthermore he wasn’t damned well sharing the bill with a pair of gloves. Thus it continued, night after night, week after week; on stage, harmony–acrimony off.

And so it was, there was no mention of the gloves on the billboard that eventually hailed their London debut. On the opening night, a packed house applauded the usual tricks, and awaited with anticipation the final act of the show – the astonishing magical gloves.

Inky blackness fell on the stage. A glove appeared, showing off a deck of cards; a dove was released and flew high into the wings; empty palms manifested from deep obscurity, and in the occult stillness, a third white glove appeared almost floating towards the first two. The ritual goblet’s bluish flame once more licked the edges of the dagger. As it lunged forward, the breath was forced out of the performer’s body, and lurching into prominence, Dexter, in his frenzy to live, urgently tore at the black hood that covered his head and neck, ripping it apart. Few who saw that contorted expression ever forgot the terror and disbelief that they saw on his face, nor the frothing gurgle of blood that pumped from the victim’s throat, choking his dying words.

Several stage hands rushed to centre stage, but to no avail. Beside him on the boards, soaked in blood, they found but a single discarded glove. Its partner was discovered only later, still in the dressing room, its stainless fingers limp around the neck of she who should have worn it.

Copyright: © 2007 Oonah V Joslin

October 2020 -- A whole Heap of HORROR -- No 20

 To see the amazing artwork, by Crystalwizard, that inspired this poem you must follow this link to Bewildering Stories.  You'll love it! And if you want to find some other of my titles that interest you, you can browse them by clicking my name at the bottom of that page for poems, stories long and short and even a novella! A Genie in a Jam which is actually a whole heap of laughs. 😃 

The Last Laugh

by Oonah V Joslin

The skeleton told all the flesh off its bones;
laid its whole life bare
till there was no story left in the book.

The rat sat patient as a friend
because, as every rat knows,
every tale must come to an end.

Fleshless, the bone that reads the empty page.
In deadlock now the two of them engage
eyeball to eyeball.

The rat has a hungry look.

October 2020 -- A whole Heap of HORROR -- No 19

Sartre said Hell was other people. What happens though if it's your own thoughts you need to escape? Is there a way out?

A Cat’s Chance

Black floor, grey walls, white ceiling. Not the most imaginative décor. At the end of the long corridor was a door marked CBT. The note in his hand bore the same letters, so Erwin knocked.

“Enter,” commanded a voice.

There was no one in the room.

“Good morning,” said the voice.

He looked up and around for speakers. “Where am I?”

“Incorrect response.”

“Good morning. Where am I?” Erwin offered.

The objects in the room seemed familiar. “I think I’ve been here before.”

“On many occasions,” confirmed the voice, “but convergent thinking is not what we require.”

“What do you want? What are these things doing here? What am I doing here?”

“Okay, we’ll play it your way -- again. Examine the objects and tell me your thoughts.”

“Is this some game?”

“The letters on the door… did they hold meaning for you?”

“CBT. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.

“Interesting.”

Erwin thought irritation at the tone of this remark would serve no purpose.

On a table at the centre of the room, there were three boxes. Two were open but the middle one was sealed. “The observer’s paradox,” he said. “This cat is dead. And this,” he looked inside the third box, “is alive, so the one inside this box is in a superposition of states.”

“And you deduce…”

“We cannot know whether the atom has decayed, whether it is at the tip or the surface of the bulk material, whether tunneling is occurring; but we may assume that for all practical purposes in macroscopic coherence, the cat’s wave function will have collapsed and it is either dead or alive and not both simultaneously.”

“You wear these thoughts like slippers,” said the voice. “Tell me about this computer.”

“Basically it is a box housing electronic components capable of receiving and storing data and carrying out complex algorithmic searches. But I would need to switch it on to find out what it can do. May I?”

“You may not.”

“The visual unit would provide a liquid crystal display of photons. And that in itself is interesting because at the quantum level…”

“Yes, so you have explained in some detail,” said the voice. “What of the photograph on the wall?”

“It’s a tennis match,” said Erwin. “One of the players looks angry. There’s chalk dust flying. Looks like the ball is outside the box.”

“The outcome is therefore open to question.”

“Yes.”

The next box was a coffin and a suspicion crept into Erwin’s mind – a suspicion he did not much care for. “Is there anything inside this?”

“Are you speaking ‘micro’ or ‘macro’scopically now?”

“Am I keeping you amused? Are you enjoying your little lab-rat game?”

“Barely. You would have to open the coffin to find your answer -- observe, collapse the field, to determine whether there was macroscopic coherence, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes. Sometimes you know I wish I’d never dreamt up that damned cat.” Erwin looked back at the three central boxes.

“Do you recognize these pictures?”

“This is the Nine Dot Puzzle; Lloyd 1914. And that’s Mickey Mouse. Walt Disney. In order to solve that puzzle you have to think outside the box and that was what Disney always encouraged his cartoonists to do. That way you create volume. You can turn two dimensional characters into… That’s it! Isn’t it.”

Looking up, he saw now that nowhere did the walls of this room join the ceiling. There simply was no ceiling and there never had been -- only light. “All this time I’ve been thinking inside a box,” he said, “not only that, it was a box of my own making!”

“Well done, my friend. CBT -- Cat/Box Therapy. All your questions have been irrelevant. ‘Where?’ is Infinite. ‘When?’ is Now. ‘What?’ is a Matter of conjecture and ‘How?’ is for the moment, Light. You already knew these things.”

Erwin went and looked inside the coffin, confirming his suspicion.

“Now -- I have a gift for you.” The voice said. “Go and open the middle box.”

Erwin did so. At last he would have the answer. But all he found inside was a simple card.

“It is the next question,” said the voice. “Read it.”

Erwin read it. “Why?”

With that, the outer walls of his cell collapsed and the card turned itself inside out making three dimensions, and again, five dimensions, and again, eight dimensions -- eleven. He laughed with sheer elation. Here was an entire multi-verse of questions to explore and here he was – Erwin Schrödinger at the centre of it all.

Copyright: © 2007 Oonah V Joslin