The Horror... The Horror... Or, Better Still, What Scares The Crap Out Of You?

bernita had a post that contemplated horror in fiction. I started to think "What kind of a story would I find horror-filled?"

I decided the best answer to that would come if I just simply tried to write one.

Here is part one of a three part story. Warning, it is all made up, but it is still a bit on the graphic and (perhaps) offensive side...


--Peaceably Insane--


The hair should have suggested much, but was contradictory. It shone like a worn nickel and had lost the dark brown tone years ago. Now it was fully silver and grown out and pulled into a single mass and held by a rubber band. It was a simple ponytail- the token symbolism of a recognizable social process. When you walked behind a man who wore this hair style, you thought you knew something about him.

Malcolm looked the part and had played the part- down to the leather sandals and loose fitting hand-dyed trousers - but had decided to forego the part in one angry instant and now here he was.

Even the deep cuts of wrinkles that bracketed his mouth and spelled out a habitual smile contradicted the two guns visibly tucked into his waist-band, and the shot-gun he held resolutely in his thin and lengthy arms. His new part required the loss of the old, and a vacancy could be seen where once a peaceful man stood. It was the vacuousness of a man whose life had been removed from him. The pony-tail still hanging long along his bony back, but the ideals that had grown it there smashed and blown away into a frightening new perception of everything.

Nine well-dressed and cowering Baptists- four men and five women- were huddled together like puppies on the floor of their small Baptist church, shivering and silently praying while Malcolm paced amongst their displayed hands, offered to him in gestures of supplication, his smiling face and determined mien far above their down-turned eyes.

“None of you will of course mind dying,” Malcolm was saying. “You got better places to be than this shit-hole, and you’ve been waiting for me for a long time. If you don’t mind me saying, I’d be thanking me for what I plan to do. They say when you get there, angels will be waiting, and eternal bliss will be your reward.”

“Why are you doing this?” rose the timid voice of the town’s banker. They spoke only to a salty pair of leather sandals.

“And y’all can surely relay a message for me, which is the point of this exercise, in case you were wondering. When you get there, amongst all the wings and halos and all that shit, I want you to tell them for me now, something very important. I want you to tell them, that Malcolm says “fuck you”. “Fuck every damn one of you”. Can you do that for me?”

Unspoken was the unanimous retort of “go to hell” by the cowering mass at Malcolm’s feet.

“If I go to hell” Malcolm answered, anticipating this, “I’ll be sure and say hello for all of y’all.”

Fire erupted from the barrel of the shotgun and the blast was deafening. A head exploded on the floor and now the small town’s only banker was separated from his body. There lay his pudgy frame, more on its side than on its belly, and there was the spreading pool of blood. Hidden in the echoing noise were the screams of five women and two of the men, erupting from the sound of the blast like a screaming train just leaving a noisy tunnel. The moment was not a real one and far beyond the understanding of the nine who were still alive, but the brain matter that slid out of its shell and quivered onto the hardwood floor was as real as one in a science-class jar.

Where there was once a pious man who loved pastries and coffee, now there was not.

All screams turned to hyperventilated whimpering as Malcolm’s voice roared above them.

“OK. Who wants to go next? The wheel that squeaks the loudest gets the lead.”

The blast of the shotgun had jumped into Malcolm’s heart and was bouncing around in there. His whole chest pounded from inside out. He needed to move around and calm himself down, but he had no plans to go. He began pacing around the eight cowering parishioners while nervously firing off questions.

“Did you think it would come to this, Mrs. Browning? When you started this, did you see how it would end? What were you thinking, Mrs. Browning? What made you into such a cruel old despicable witch?”

Mrs. Browning had brought the refreshments today. On her finely ironed blouse remained the smudge of fudge that she had not the time to wash with water. Entering the small church this morning, she had tilted her plate clumsily while trying to open the door into the tiny kitchen that flanked the bathrooms at the rear of the church. A brownie had tumbled toward her, and she had caught it between an arm and her well-concealed breast. She had smiled at Mr. Gregory, the pastor, who stared at the mark and said nothing as the moment passed.

“ANSWER ME!” Malcolm screamed.

Mrs. Browning began to sob. Out of her mouth came nonsensical sentence fragments and several appeals to God. From her nostrils runny mucous flowed, her powdered cheeks streaking and caking, her lips hanging like the loose labia of fornicating sinners. Her answer boiled down to God intervening and Malcolm granting pity, and neither seemed plausible under the circumstances.

“I do pity you, Mrs. Browning. I do. I really, truly and most sincerely do. But I will not HAVE pity on you. I will not TAKE pity on you. You are a chosen one. You are one of God’s messengers. I need you, Mrs. Browning, to take a message for me on your way to meet your maker. You do remember what the message is, don’t you Mrs. Browning? WHAT’S THE MESSAGE MRS. BROWNING?”

“Fuck you.”

“Yes! FUCK YOU! That’s what it is! You tell them Malcolm sent you, you hear? And you make sure you don’t mumble, ok? You won’t mumble, will you, Mrs. Browning?

WILL YOU, Mrs. Browning?”

Malcolm placed the warm barrel-end of the shotgun against her temple. Her body froze and shook as she tried to lay silent while her body ignored her. All she knew to do was close her eyes and tighten herself around herself. If His will had come, Thy will be done…

“THY WILL BE DONE?” read Malcolm from her quivering lips. “Thy will be done? You need to have that conversation with ME, Mrs. Browning. You need to ask yourself why MY WILL is about to blow your mother fucking head off! You’re talking to the wrong dude, Mrs. Browning. You should be talking TO ME!”

As Mrs. Browning sat up to scream at Malcolm, fire erupted from the end of the shotgun barrel once again. The blast was not as loud as the first blast- it had a ring of familiarity to it now- but the screams were louder, and the head that exploded spat more blood laterally than the first shot, which had been straight down. Mrs. Browning slumped to the floor as she realized it had not been her that had been shot, but Gertrude, who played the organ. In a brave attempt to stop the taunting, Gertrude had made a sudden move that cost her her face and the back half of her head. Her last words had indeed been “fuck you!”

Malcolm wondered if they’d ever get to where he had intended to send them?

“Does someone want to say a prayer for the organ lady? Anyone? How about you Bob? Are you feeling really pious and holy today? Would you like to sing a hymn?”

Bob was all lean sinew and leather. He butchered pigs and cows, grew corn and tomatoes and watermelon, and dressed in an outdated but finely made suit every Sunday. In his mind, he was the hero here. He would be the one to pounce on this hippy man. He would be the one to grab the gun away. If there was a physical presence within this group that was capable, it was he. But fear actually paralyzed him, and he was as immobile as a carcass. When the question came to him, he could do nothing but mouth half a word and cry.

“Oh Bob… Now Bob…” Malcolm said soothingly. “You know you want to. I can see it in your eyes… Come on, Bob. Just a lunge. Just a quick dive over here to grab my legs. You know you have it in you. I mean, who else but you, right Bob? You’re the heroic, manly American. You were a soldier in the war, were you not? Oh that’s right, you were stateside, sweeping barracks or some such thing. You never did have a gun pointed in your face, did you Bob?…

Was it prayers Bob? You think God chose you to stay here while guys like me went over there and fought? Did God like you better, Bob? Is that it? That is it, isn’t it? God liked you better? Would you send a message to God for me, Bob? Can you do that? Are you gonna be capable of opening that mouth of yours when you get up there and give God a message for me? Come on, Bob. Let me hear you say it. Say it or I’ll shoot you in the foot.”

Bob was frozen. Everything trembled but nothing moved.

There was a fire leaping from the end of the barrel. There was another booming blast. There were screams coming out of the noise like there had been the last time; but this time, one was the scream of a wounded beast.

This time, there was the scream of an insane amount of pain being described by a sinewy old man who had just lost his foot at the ankle.

Blood pulsed out in rapidly shrinking intervals, and the entire floor of bodies writhed in fear and agony and incredible subjugation, the kind that torments the mind in our evilest of dreams- the suffocation of the senses by sheer terror- and Malcolm paced around this small herd of locals like a tyrant unrepentant.

“Say it, Bob. SAY IT!”

“FUCK YOU!” Bob wailed. It was long and drawn out like a howl. There was a wounded animal hidden in the words. There was the pain of slaughter in the trailing “ooooooo”… and there was fear and lots and lots of doubt.

“Good.” said Malcolm. “Very good.”

There was a flash from the end of a hot barrel and an enormous boom, and Bob’s chest turned instantly hollow at a point where there was once a beating heart.

“Do you think there is a God Mrs. Browning? Are you prepared to see him on this glorious Sunday? What about you Katherine? Would you like to go to him now?”

The scene was already over-run by horrific images. There was a chubby body laying on its side without a head. There was a sinewy body missing a foot with a hole where there was once a heart. Gertrude, the organ player, lay sprawled in the center of the clustered group with her face imploded and the back of her head gone. Blood had showered the scene and covered its participants, who were whining and huddling in sobbing and convulsing terror.

Katherine would not look beyond the bloodied space in front of her on the hardwood to speak. The hair that hid her face was dark and sticky like raspberry chocolate.

“Kath-e-rine…” Malcolm sang. “Kath-e-rine…”

“I hope you rot in hell!” said one of the other women. It was not Mrs. Browning and in no way Katherine. Malcolm began pacing around the group with his shotgun pointing at them, its barrel smoking.

“Do you believe in hell? Did you say that Mrs. White? Isn’t that just beautiful! Heaven and hell! It’s so easy. You’re good, I am bad. You’re all going to heaven. I’m going to hell. I get the satisfaction of revenging my daughter’s death, and y’all get to go to heaven and talk about ME! Ain’t that something? Don’t ch’all just wanna shout Hallelujah! And AMEN! Ain’t that what ch’all are suppose to say?”

Malcolm seemed to be spurred by an idea. His body language grew more pronounced as he pointed and commanded.

“Alrighty, then! I think it’s time we moved this party. Those three are making me sick. If any of y’all are wondering how many shells this here shotgun is still holding, thank ol’ Bob for modifying it for me last summer. It holds eight 12 gauge magnum-power-loaded SOB’s… The pellets are steel-alloy, as heavy as lead, and they’re not rounded balls, neither. Each one is as sharp on its edges as a rusty old tin-can, and you’ve seen what they can do. You should be proud of this old hippy man from up north. Y’all taught him some pretty neat tricks!

Now come on. Gather your wits and scoot on over to that wall. I want the rest of y’all sitting up and staring at me. So we can have a conversation.”

Malcolm shoved the hot barrel of the shotgun into Mrs. Browning’s back.

“You first, Karen,” he told her. “GO!”

Not Karen Browning but Katherine was the first to scoot. Never looking up, she pushed herself along the slippery floor smearing blood in a path toward the wall. Mrs. White wanted away from the headless corpse that lay beside her and she too scooted like an odd animal over to the wall. Nancy was now left exposed by the two women who had abandoned the tight knot of bodies. Nancy was a widow and a bit of a looker. Nancy dared show a bit of chest in her Sunday dress, but now was not the time to be noticed for anything.

“You too, Nancy. Go on. Scoot on over there.”

Nancy’s dress flipped up and showed off ageless legs as she scooted away from Mrs. Browning and the pastor, who was also the town’s local Sherriff. He was the fourth body sprawled amongst the bloody spatter, only he was still whole, and still breathing, having been pistol-whipped what seemed like three lifetimes ago, but was, in fact, not many minutes.

“Mrs. Browning. What is it you are going to say when you get to heaven? You have been anointed my humble messenger. I have selected you to be my next martyr, to pass my glorious message onto God and the angels. You, dear woman, have the choice between scooting over to that wall, or Fed Ex’ing yourself right on up outta here. Do you have a preference?”

Mrs. Browning began a slow and methodical- and defiant- scoot.

“Fuck you,” she spit. “Fuck you and damn your soul for all eternity.”

Malcolm smiled.

“Close enough.” he said. “Now get your fat, southern ass against that wall.”

Malcolm wiped his face with his arm. It was hot and humid here. This southern heat was unwelcome to him now that he needed to keep his cool. This was the heat that first drew him down into northern Louisiana, as it seemed to help his arthritic knees.

Knees which had been nearly destroyed fighting a war over thirty-seven years ago.

Small chunks of steel- perhaps even pieces of tin cans- had been loaded into a device that went off when a thin and unseen wire was tripped by a fellow soldier. Malcolm had been cut down just two weeks into his tour of duty, and he had been sent home.

God was not part of the equation for the pain that Malcolm felt from then until now, but many attributed Malcolm’s good fortune to God nonetheless.

“God was looking out for you that day,” was often heard. Malcolm couldn’t see the logic there, and became an Atheist.


-2-

The only man left alive was Mr. Gregory, and he was unconscious. For a Sherriff, Malcolm thought, he sure was a puny bastard.

Malcolm took the tie off of Bob’s lanky neck, and tied Mr. Gregory’s ankles in a knot so tight it had to be cut off later. He then found the tie that had slipped off of the unencumbered neck of Mr. White, the banker. Mrs. White shrunk in horror and covered her face, while Malcolm tied Mr. Gregory’s hands to his belt behind his back. The other blood-spattered women stared frozen in disbelief, as numb as trauma would allow them to be, as dead as much alive by virtue of unfathomable fear.

(To be continued...)