jackanory | |||||||||||||||||
|
| ||||||||||||||||
| the story begins... | |||||||||||||||||
|
Rolling black thunderclouds, wreaking sodden vengeance upon the earth, covered the midnight sky. The rain hammered upon the choked mud. It hammered upon the roads, the buildings, the motor vehicles, upon all the creations of man. Man itself was hiding meekly in its various dwellings from the cold and from the wet. The rain hammered also upon the leaves and the bark of the forest. It fell through the gaps between the branches and plummeted to the ground. It fell upon the heads and upper bodies of two naked human figures, standing at the crossing of two paths, nestled together as is a meteor and its crater. Their names were unimportant. The black rain trickled downwards to their feet, and onwards, inevitably, to the forest floor. As the girl became regained more and more consciousness of her surroundings, she became more and more aware of the cold. Her skin, only minutes before glowing- illuminated- both by the lightening and from a deeper source within her, was now pallid and goosepimply, and smarting from the stinging onslaught of the rain. Her hair which had crackled and danced in the static atmosphere as if powered by its own electricity now hung lank and forlorn, and she could taste the lacquer and gel in the raindrops running into her mouth. Her body no longer felt ethereal or weightless or timeless... it just felt more and more grazed and sore and cold as the sensation crept back through her. Seemingly moments before - already, remembering was looking through a steamed up window or listening to a radio laying in the next room- she'd felt elemental power coursing through her veins like a mixture of tequila and too-pure speed and the kind of excitement you only ever feel when you're a kid at Christmas.... and now all she felt was achy, homesick and cold.... The boy opened one eye, then the other. He registered cold and water, but his brain had not yet made the connection that he was outside and it was raining. He lifted his head, then immediately regretted it. It was heavy and filled with fuzz, a dull ache throbbing across the front, from temple to temple. He raised a languid hand to dull the pain, then noticed her. Suddenly, the pain disappeared. The girl shifted quickly, her eyes settling upon his. They travelled slowly along the lines of his naked body, registering the beads of water that rolled down, catching slightly in the fine hairs that were scattered across his forearms, legs, and sparse on his chest. He blushed fiercely and turned his face away, swallowing thickly. Then, it hit him. She was a stranger. He glanced back up quickly, his eyes widening with the knowledge. He scurried up, pulling his knees together in a vain attempt to conceal what God gave him, his voice strained with fear and embarrassment. "W..who are you? The girl just smiled. She continue to smile devilishly. After a few long moments, the boy tilted his head to one side. "Who are you?" "Oh," she snapped out of her daze and looked around at their surroundings. "I live there," she pointed to the eerie looking house. "I didn't think anyone lived there. Do you know where my clothes are?" he said, tightening his grip around himself. "No." She looked down and discovered that she too was without clothes. "You can come inside and I'll find something for you to wear." Amazed at her confidence, he followed her inside the huge, dark decrepit house. The porch was old and worn, right in front of the door there was a hole as if someone waiting to be welcomed in had fallen through while scuffing impatiently. The girl circled the gap, opened the door from the side and stepped on the threshold - she'd done it before but the boy followed more cautiously. When he came inside she was lighting an old lamp with matches, it was darker in the house, the windows were smeared and sooty so the lightning were no longer visible but he could still hear the rain pounding on the roof and dripping on the floor where broken tiles had let the water in. When the light from the lamp illuminated the room they were standing in, the sound of hundreds of legs looking for shelter deafened the thunder and the floor looked as if it were alive, pouring into every crack and crease between the floorboards and under the walls. The boy froze as he felt them running over his bare toes, around his ankles and under the floor he was standing on, he heard their frantic panic of getting out of the way, crawling over each other to be the first to safety, he saw the floor run away and then as suddenly as it had started everything was quiet again, calm, he could hear the rain dripping and the thunder roaring. Then the girl said: "Don't be scared, they won't come back until I put the light out and it's dark enough for them again." The boy drew his arms across his chest and shivered. He blinked away the rainwater puddling in his eyes. "Things?" he asked quietly. "What things?" The girl didn't answer. She was opening a cupboard door. The handle had long since broken off, but the door was kept ajar so that she could grip the edge of it to pull it open. As she pulled it outwards it groaned, the hinges rusted almost completely. She reached up and pulled a blanket from one of the shelves. The blanket was grey, and very dusty. The girl shook it, dust descending like a mist, and the boy could see that it was moth-eaten, full of holes. He was surprised that it was still in one piece. She threw him the blanket and he caught it, wrapped it about his shoulders. It smelt terrible, like compost. The girl obviously noticed the expression on his face, because she laughed faintly and reached once more into the cupboard. A clear plastic bag landed at the boy's feet. He stumbled backwards and trod on something sharp, crying out. He was about to examine his foot which he could feel was bleeding quite heavily, when he noticed what was contained within the plastic bag. It was a partially-decomposed tabby cat, with a sharpened tree-branch thrust through its back and emerging from its chest. The boy felt his guts heave like they were being wrung out by invisible hands... What the hell was she doing to him? If she was trying to scare him shitless, she was succeeding. And yet she seemed so innocent, so...simple, even, that he found it hard to believe that. With trepidation, he crouched nervously, trying to stem the flow of blood from his foot with the least fetid-looking corner of the blanket. "Uh...what happened to your cat?" he asked, regretting the question almost even before the words had left his lips. Tending to his wound, he was at close enough range to see seething clumps of maggots writhing greedily inside the bag, leaving spidery trails in the condensation that had formed inside it. He looked up through the waves of nausea that were threatening to engulf him once more and saw the girl smiling beatifically down at him. "Oh, he died, " she replied, as if it'd been knocked down by a school bus, or fallen down a well or something. This girl is crazy, he thought to himself, I don't know who she is or what she's on but she's definitely crazy and I want to get out of here... The girl watched him in an interested but detached way. She watched fear and horror pass over the boy, and passively observed the pathetic sight he made, dabbing at his heel forlornly whilst attempting to keep his genitals covered. She bent down and snatched up the bag full of dead cat, and shoved it back in the cupboard, closing the door carefully, and leaving it just a fraction ajar. He was sure she was whispering something as she did so. She smiled again... "You'd better come upstairs, " she said, " and let me clean up your foot a little." The boy blinked, his mouth opening slightly as if he were on the verge of words, then closed it just as suddenly. He turned slightly, eyes gazing out the door, at the rain drizzling steadily down. �I'd much rather face that,� he thought. He slowly lowered his foot, testing his weight upon it. He winced slightly as a sharp bolt shot up his leg, causing him to grunt in pain. The girl quirked an eyebrow, the corner of her mouth turning up into the faintest ghost of a smile. She started towards the stairs, placing her hand on the banister, calling back to him, �Join me?� She started up without waiting for an answer and he finally started to feel really panicky. 'God, what am I gonna do? WhatamIgonnado?' He nibbled nervously on his lower lip, the question running through his mind at lightning speed. He felt his feet move, taking him towards the stairs. He blinked in surprised, for he had not compelled them to do so. He glanced down at them. Yes, they were moving. He opened his mouth once more, this time to scream -but nothing came out. He clamped his lips together and squeezed his shut, resigning to his fate. He opened his mouth once again and let the words fall out on their own. �Yes. I am coming.� He followed her carefully up the stairs, wondering if this decision had been the right one to make. She led silently. At the top of the stairs she made a left into a narrow doorway and flipped on the light. Ah, the bathroom. �Have a seat� she said motioning to the toilet. The bathroom was completely white tiled. Although he could see in spots the normally clean white had been stained by red. �Blood?� he thought. She pulled various bottles out of the medicine cabinet. None contained labels. All he could see were the contents through the walls of glass. One contained a thin translucent green liquid. the other, a significantly thick blue liquid. The girl used a rag to apply a good amount of each liquid to his wound. Surprisingly, neither application stung. When she was finished she put the bottles away and left the rag on the counter. �Come into my room, I might have some clothes for you, since you're obviously embarrassed� she smiled, as he tried to cover himself once more. He followed her out of the bathroom and down the massive hallway. Just as she stepped into a bedrooms that must have been hers, he took a look at his foot before looking into the room. �The pain is gone,� he thought bewilderedly. And when he looked at his foot he saw that the would had completely disappeared. �What....?� he whispered. A patch of white skin stretched defiantly before his open eyes. Veins, red and purple vines twining beneath an epidermal blanket of snow, whispered to themselves; secrets of circulation confined to the pulse. Musing over his skin, newly free of wounds, he averted his gaze from the arc of his bone and flesh, and towards his surroundings. A doorway cut a rectangle picture into the air. The narrow, vertical view of the room glared from the flattened ivory tusks of the walls. Open. Inviting. Flames of candles bloomed. Orange and blue flames licked each other, flaring above the wrought iron from which they stood. Intricate spirals, candleholders mapping the atomic structure of flowers in black twists and hooks hung from dull silver nails. The silver slivers jutted from the smooth white walls in uneven angles, like needles gleaming in downward slants from newly punctured flesh. The glimmer of candles, a confined sunset, cast yellow streaks on the upturned face of the girl. Flickering light lapped at her face, accentuating depthless black pupils framed in irises of liquid jade. The delicate point of her nose and elegant slant of each eye cast beams of faded black across her face. The web of shadow-stitched light sculpted the corners of her mouth into a deviant grin. Silken hair, colored the thickest shade of merlot, fell in straight lines down her face. Milky lines of legs extended from the starved hourglass of a torso, crossed and intertwined. Her eyes begged. Swelling pools of black pupils beckoned, luring him with their cool black ponds. The faint lapping of the pond's waters called him, each splashing wave whispering his name in spilling syllables. Moved by the current, he walked forth - placing foot after unwounded foot in front of the other until he reached the square spring of the bed. Black and red sheets of silk and satin rested upon the soft mattress, spun of cotton and stuffed with feathers. The girl lay naked on the cloth. Her skin, like the palest wisps of clouds, stood matt and opaque from the acrylic sheen of the bed's black comforter. With wet knees, the boy crept towards the open V of her arms. He licked his lips with a dry tongue as he slithered towards the porcelain lair. She curled her fingers near his scalp as he drew nearer, and scraped the soft skin of his scalp as gravity relented and the boy went careering- spinning- into the cavernous body before him. # Thud-crash, thud-crash, thud-crash. The hammering of Bryan�s heart woke him�-a jar of rabid butterflies fluttering in his chest. He lifted his heavy head from the cradle of his arms and looked around. Spots swam before his eyes, tear drop beads of rainbows in the air. Dim yellow light flooded from above, and the monotonous hum of the dirty fluorescent light made the long bulbs vibrate. An aching whirlpool spun behind the bone of his forehead. Infinite towers of shelves, dark, dusty wooden shelves-�all stacked high with books�stretched for what looked like miles beyond him, unfolding from every direction. He looked down. He was seated at a desk. A book lay open on its shiny plastic surface. Looking at the thick book, its cover loosely bound and pages littered with notes, he noticed a distinct scrawl embedded on the aging paper. Wet blue circles glared from the dull white, smudged like paint with sweat from his forehead as he slept. A word was circled. He then recognized the erratic sweeping scribble as his own. Peering through his sleep-choked eyes, he strained to decipher the word through blurry eyes, and finally cleared his vision enough to see. �Succubus,� read the word encircled in ink. Ink like waves of the blackest ocean.... | ||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||
|
This page has been visited
|