Horror

This must be Hell. Sun smothered him through the grimy bus windows, as the driver rattled them over potholes and rubbish on shot suspension.

The woman turned to him, releasing the meaty smell of her dehydrated mouth. “You must be having a lovely time, Father,” she said. The question mark got lost in the clatter of the bus. His forehead was damp. “You don’t get to go out much.”

Again, it was not a question. He smiled a response, unwilling to open his mouth in case the smell of her breath seeped into it, God forgive him.

“You’re not making the most of things, you eat hardly anything. Not worried about gluttony, are you?” She laughed, her smell sprayed all over his face. He’d have to wash before he could eat. Of all his parishioners, why did she have to sit close to him, carve out these little moments to chat?

He wanted to enjoy the sun. Visiting the Vatican City had been special, returning the long way to England had been the wrong decision. His parishioners were getting rowdy as they sampled wine and food.

The bus pulled up outside a rundown white cottage. The windows were narrow and dark, rusted equipment guarded the open door. A horse nodded its head, its skin shivered on its flanks. Father Michael took a breath of air when he got off the bus. Manure from the farm, hot diesel. It was better than the decay on Mrs Hellingway’s breath.

A man came out of the house and surveyed them. They filed in, the last stop before the boat. The tiny cottage had a large kitchen with a single table taking up most of the room. Two benches, one on either side, used up the remaining space. The cottage floor was packed earth. Father Michael wanted to make sure he was near the door. The man came in and left with an extension cable, one end plugged in.

He should have been paying attention to the seating order. He was with Mrs Hellingway again.

“Father! Jeanie tells me you’re a vegetarian.” She pronounced it “veget-hair-ian.” Was she sick? Father Michael held his breath and nodded. His secret was out. Everyone turned towards him.

“Ah no, Father!” said Mrs Joyce.

“My grandson is one of those,” said Mrs Bently.

“He sure is,” said Mr Joyce, to a slap on the arm from his wife.

“But Father, no wonder you look so pale,” said Mrs Hellingway.

Outside, the shadow of the horse was getting jittery. It kicked at the ground. The man said something. It sounded like a threat, but Father Michael didn’t understand Italian. The language sounded vicious at the best of times. Could no one else smell Mrs Hellingway?

“What about the Eucharist?” said Mary Fellowes, one of the younger parishioners. She looked worried. Father Michael leaned towards her to put himself outside the miasma surrounding Mrs Hellingway. “It’s not literally the body of Christ,“ he said. “Only symbolic.” She looked worried still. Perhaps she had missed the last part; outside, a saw was screeching.

“Surely the Good Lord put the animals here for us to use?” said Mrs Hellingway. “You’re the expert, of course!”

“That doesn’t mean we have to eat them.”

The Italian woman who was to cook for them stood listening.

Her husband came in with a metal tub. Father Michael smelled the blood and his stomach flipped. He stopped talking.

“They are tasty, though,” said Mrs Hellingway. Her breath wrapped itself around him, mixed with the smell of blood. He blacked out.

When he woke only the Italian couple and Mrs Hellingway were still there.

“The others have gone on,” she said. “You feel better.” It wasn’t a question.

He did. On the oven, pots bubbled, but Father Michael wasn’t hungry. He must have been out for some time, if everyone else had eaten and left. There was blood everywhere. Sun warmed him through the cosy windows. Flies buzzed. The earthen floor was soft, though he should get up soon. He stood, patting dust off his clothes. There was blood spattered all over him too. Perhaps the man had spilled the tub on seeing the priest fall over? Outside, the air was fresh. There was a puddle of blood where the horse had been, a belt floating in the middle of it. He looked closer. Not a belt, a tail.

“You didn’t have to eat them, you know,” said Mrs Hellingway.

“They were so tasty,” said Father Michael, without thinking. In the deep end of the puddle were rings, earrings, bracelets and necklaces.

---

Imagine a lava lamp that had the power to kill the world. The green blob folded over itself, like the glass prison was too small. It had an entire glass-walled room to itself. An ink black eye in the centre. Occasionally the ribbons of its—brain matter, as far as we could tell—opened enough to show the eye. Then it disappeared again.
Sleeping, my boss said.
Thinking, said his boss.
Planning, said the military bosses, begging to try out their new weapons on it.
Dreaming.
The Growth had been the only survivor of the Hercules 12 launch. The bodies of the crew had been on board, but their minds had been left in the vast black distance between Earth and Neptune. Footage and computer readings are clear. The Growth was not on the space station, and not on the spaceship when it left for a routine supply run home.
When the ship landed it had been inside, a ball of muscle collapsed on the floor of the cockpit. Unused to gravity. We had found life, and it had destroyed a space mission, before returning to hibernation.
Dreaming.
The news was kept from the population to prevent panic. I stared at the Growth. Seaweed, swirling in its prison. Was it waking? It was moving faster.
What I really want to do is get into the liquid with it. It’s literally a space creature, unable to cope with gravity. It’s in a syrup, thick enough to counteract the pull of gravity.
I’m not allowed into the specimen jar, of course.
The eye is unreadable.
How did it kill the people on board the ship? The theory is that they saw the thing, opened the door to get it and then forgot to close the door properly. And the computer systems failed which is why there was no alarm.
Are there more of them? I think there is only one. This is part of it.
It’s been named already, but I have my own name for it.
Cthulhu.
He’s Dreaming.

He lives in the cupboard. He comes out when mother cooks on the gas stove. My mother is always fully engaged in conversation with whatever she is cooking. A stranger might think she is talking to me, as she is using my name. But she never looks at me, and she doesn’t wait for me to respond.
“Nobody could have known, could they, Grace?” she says. “As long as it doesn’t happen again, Grace.”
“Your father will be upset if you let him down, Grace.”
She looks at the fried eggs the whole time. Her voice flows over me, as the little figure climbs up the tea-towel, and runs along the countertop. He somersaults into the sink full of water. Makes faces at my mother. Imitates her cooking eggs. He knows he went too far.

The kitchen is painted what my mother calls a “cheerful yellow.” I think it’s like being trapped inside the yolk of an egg. Flypaper with black fly corpses, like sprinkles of pepper. The little figure is made out of matchsticks, if you’re wondering. A red head and a skinny body. One snapped stick for arms, one for legs. He doesn’t have a name (he’s not the sort of friend you call. More the sort that turns up and then something goes wrong).
I smell smoke. I’ll have a bath. Matchstick man won’t follow me. He doesn’t like water. He’s climbing up my mother’s back and I wonder if he’s doing it to cheer me up, or if he just likes having an audience. He might not be my friend at all.

If it hadn’t been for him, I wouldn’t have set the church on fire.I wasn’t trying to burn it down, I was playing with matchstick man. I’d never heard him so happy as he stood on my shoulder, watching the flames.
There have been lots of fires.
“A vessel for evil,” is what the priest called me. Mother gave out to him. I’d done wrong, but she stood up for me.
Matchstick man is making fun of her. I don’t like it.
Where did he go? Take your eyes off him for a minute…. Everything looks okay. Ma had turned off the cooker, and the toaster is unplugged. I get up to lay the table and check in his cupboard. He’s not there. I feel a tiny movement on my back. I turn to look around at Da, who doesn’t do much except sit and stare since the accident. Too much smoke. The doctors said his brain is damaged. He’s staring at me. Or rather, he’s staring at a spot just over my shoulder. When Ma has sat down and the clatter of plates has finished, I can hear heavy breathing from my shoulder.
A lot of fires we’ve had around here.
Da’s eyes are bright.

The injury was worse.

Ellen felt better.

As blue seeped up her arm, she felt strong.

Jack was struggling against it.

He had tried a tourniquet, talked about cutting off his arm. Now he rocked in the corner.

The undead were shambling around. Their prey had escaped.

Ellen and Jack were turning, but still human. Go out now and they’d be eaten.

Ellen wanted to be complete. Didn’t want to be one of the legless who dragged themselves along the ground, late to every meal. She wanted to prey.

Her arm felt hot and itchy. The bite stung. Her mouth was bitter.

It should have been a simple mission.

Their hide-away was around the corner, a mile down the road.

They’d holed up at a rundown gas station. The previous owner had been security conscious. There were metal shutters, a hidden cellar, and plenty of canned food and shotguns.

Ellen reckoned they had taken him in the sudden storm of infection that had destroyed the world overnight. (His rifle behind the counter. A mess of blood around it. He’d shot. And missed.)

He’d been scratching at the door when they’d arrived. They’d let him out and been holed up since. Three months.

Ellen wanted to get out of the place more than she wanted to scout for fresh supplies. Had talked at Jack until he’d been convinced (Wasn’t any less fair than him talking at her for three months. He’d lost his nerve, couldn’t bear for her to leave even to go to the toilet.) He wouldn’t be scared much longer.

In the dark of their shelter, the back of a van free of the undead, she could see his arm throbbing.

The veins pushing to the surface.

It looked painful.

It felt painful.

But it would make her stronger. When she woke up, she’d be one of them.

Jack whimpered to himself.

Praying.

What would happen when there was no fresh meat left, when everyone had turned?

Fresh meat? She meant people, right?

People like Jack who’d never done her any harm.

She’d rip them apart.

“Jack?”

His wet eyes looked in her direction.

“When we come back…”

His eyes cleared. Expecting her to say something to make it all better, to fix things. To tell him it wasn’t all bad.

She knew what to say. There was only one thing.

“When we come back.” Her eyes started to close. The itchy heat had reached her heart and her brain. “just do… what everyone else does.”

---

This is an older piece, from way back in January in 2020. Hope you like it!

The names of the crew replaced those of the actor’s onscreen, and the snotty punk music changed into an orchestral score played on a synthesiser.
“These are the guys who make the film, you know.”
“I know, Mal.”
“The actors just do what they’re told. Or, you know, try to.”
The Slaughters of Christ was being praised—on genre websites—with single-handedly bringing back Nunsploitation movies. Mal didn’t like it.
The deal was, we took it in turns. I watched the auteur-director-drivel films he chose and he watched the films I chose. Admittedly they weren’t art but at least something happened in them. Mal wanted to be a screenwriter-slash-director. I wanted to be a screenwriter-slash(haha!)-actor.
“I could hardly see the final scene, the lighting was off,” he said.
“Sure, Mal.” He was right, but that was clever. They didn’t have the budget for convincing effects for the, what would she be called? the Boss Nun? the Nun Queen? to morph into a demon and eat all the naked younger nuns in bright light. Besides they were in a cave, why wouldn’t it be dark?
“I suppose we’re watching Slaughters of Christ, Part 2: The Nunnoning, next time you pick a film?
“Sure Mal,” I said. “And before that we’ll watch Bearded Mumblecore Monologue, Part Whatever, when you choose.”
He tilted his beer bottle to get the last warm drip of beer. “I’m going to bed,” he said.
I turned in too. I had my script almost finished. Tomorrow. Then a quick second draft and start submitting it. It was good. It was going to start me on the road to success and the fist of many busty Hollywood wives.

I couldn’t sleep. Whenever I was just drifting off, Mal intruded. He pointed at me and laughed getting closer and closer, until I could feel the heat of his breath. A nightmare. He was going to make more money than me. He was a better filmmaker. He was a director. I woke covered in sweat. He was in the doorway, watching me. “Sleep well?”, he asked.
I shook my head.
“All those cheap horror films are giving you nightmares,” he said. Then he continued talking about how men went to the hairdresser more often than women, even though they supposedly cared less about their appearance, and a guy he went to kindergarten with, who might be gay, not that it mattered but he was allergic to avocados, and being creative shouldn’t be about ego although how can it not be?
I woke up with a start, covered in sweat.
“Sleep well?” he asked. Then he told me about a documentary he’d seen. About how pigs were raised for slaughter, in darkness but with some kind of UV light, but they didn’t get a tan, wasn’t that strange? And palm oil was used in biscuits and ice-cream, which meant it was soft and crunchy, and he wanted me to help him take a new profile photo for Tinder, because cats were no longer in, like they used to be. Why didn’t people eat cats, if they ate dogs? Everybody thinks dogs are dirtier than cats but nobody eats cats, so maybe it’s a cultural thing.
I woke, covered in sweat.

He already had a moustache. His daddy had made him a little gun-belt, too. The biggest, ugliest baby I ever seen. Not that I’d say that out loud: he was the Sheriff’s son. Burl was his name, but his Momma called him Burly, when she was out and about. And wherever she went, the place emptied out pretty quickly. I felt sorry for her, but there was no saying anything in case the Sheriff caught wind of it. 
So she was stuck with the baby most days, the Sheriff himself having a lot of business around town, all of a sudden. The only thing on everybody’s mind was little Burly Baby. With his moustache and his thick shoulders and his little gun-belt shooting off reflections as he drooled and scowled. He was shaping up to be as much of a bully as his Daddy. Couldn’t stop thinking about that damn baby. The whole town went quiet after he was born. Even in their own homes, in case the wind changed, and carried their words out the window and into the Sheriff’s ears.
It was a relief when the kid started walking around. On the other hand, it wasn’t. We’d spent so much time thinking about little Burly without being able to say a damn thing, that it was a relief to see he wasn’t some shared hallucination. The first time he came out his Momma was behind him, but he had no more need of her. His moustache was halfway to his chin and his Daddy had bought him little toy guns to put in his holster. The poor Momma looked tired and Burl quickly left her behind. 

I bumped into him in the woods. He gave me the foulest look I’d ever seen. He was still drooling, his moustache grey from slobber and his single eyebrow going from ear to ear. He’d found one of the cats that made a good go at being a stray. He had his toy gun out as he played with it. Bashing its head in. I passed on and never said a word to anyone in case his father thought I was bad-mouthing his son. 

It was agreed he should be homeschooled after he attended his first class. In return the school children should first apologise for laughing or whatever it was they must have done to set him off. Then he was out of sight for a few more years. He didn’t mix well. We went through so many teachers, that the sheriff arranged for the new teacher to stay in the jailhouse when he wasn’t at work. For his own sake. 

There was a river a couple miles out, real secluded, and people’d go there and talk about the Baby—he remained Burly Baby, even though he was in his twenties by now. They’d talk about the things he’d done, how he looked at them, and how no one was allowed to say anything, and the water took the words away downstream and they’d feel better. 

There was a knock on my door.  I knew it was him.  I’d been young when the Sheriff’s wife gave birth and it had put me right off the thought of marriage. The town was dying out.
There he stood, with the same moustache and the same angry look. I shrank back, but I don’t think he noticed, because we’d all had so much practice.
‘Hi Burl,’ I said.
He pushed his way in and he had real guns in his belt. ‘You got whiskey?’ he asked. I didn’t. Anyone who had whiskey had drunk it. It was only the teetotallers left. And Burl, who couldn’t get his Daddy to buy him more after last time. 
‘I’m thirsty,’ he said, twitching his moustache in a manner that I could never figure out. I had some coffee on the stove and he drank that, which made him talkative.
‘I’m thinking of getting a wife,’ he said.
‘Uh-huh.’
‘But there ain’t no women.’
‘Right,’ I said. There weren’t. You had a daughter you married her off real quick, before Burl came around.
‘How come you never married?’ he asked. He started wandering around my room, poking at the photo over my hearth and my pan of food and sucking my evening meal off his finger.
‘Never fancied it.’
‘I think it’s time we married you off, as well,’ he said.
‘Sure, just need to find us some women.’ I relaxed. I couldn’t think of a single one anywhere that we could get in trouble by talking.
‘But I’m getting married first. I need to have kids, carry on the line.’
There was another knock at the door. 
‘So if you can wait a few years, I’m going to give you my eldest.’
‘Sure.’ But I didn’t feel so fine no more.
The sheriff pushed into my room when I opened the door. Dragging his wife in after him.
‘So you’ll be my best man?’