Short Stories

...to face the newcomer, a short middle-aged man, wearing a dark suit complete with the dog-collar of a Catholic priest.
"Who the hell are you and what are you doing here?" said Booker, so shocked by the sudden appearance that any kind of protocol left his head.
"I'm Father Adamson," said the priest, stepping from the doorway and pacing further into the room, "I've come help you."
"Help me? How?" ...
...Booker pulled up some way short of his destination and switched off the engine, before setting out on foot along with Fr. Adamson. In silence they climbed the steep, scarp face of the hill, keeping low to the ground to avoid being seen. As they neared the peak Booker reeled and staggered, impelled forward by a heavy blow to the back of the head. Losing his balance he fell and, as his face met the cold earth. Consciousness fled him.

... more

This is a story I wrote a while ago for the entertainment of the forum regulars on a football management game I play. The names of the characters and places within the story are based on the usernames of some of the guys on the website and I've not got around to changing them yet. Just so you know, the website is split into many 'servers' each with their own leagues, and my server is called Felix, hence the name of the story. Also, it was originally written as a serial, with a chunk posted every few days, hence the broken up nature of the story. At the time I was only thinking one post ahead of myself, so I basically wrote the whole thing as I went! For all that, I think it actually turned out quite well.

Enough preamble, here's the story:

The Felix Horror

Dusk wrapped its grey hands around the city as Detective Booker peered through the dirty, cracked pane of the 1st floor window, opposite the house his suspect had entered some time earlier. He'd been working on a case in which the scum responsible had escalated from the kidnap of one schoolgirl, to the frenzied murder and mutilation of a further two. In each case the victim was accosted in their own home and the murderer had left his mark or motif scrawled on one of the walls in his victims blood - a letter K.

After two weeks with no real leads and with the prospect of this becoming a media circus if it came to a public appeal for clues, or if the press got hold of it too soon, Booker had got his break. Having dealing with a minor case in one of Felix City's most run-down districts, he'd seen a face through the window of the terrace-house three doors down, a face from his past that sent an electric charge through the hairs on the nape of his neck - Krimson. Krimson was a killer of the worst kind, the sort of wacko who'd slash anyone to pieces for the fun of it. Krimson had eventually been caught after he'd spent too long having 'fun' with the corpse of Bookers ex-partner D.C. Apollo; allowing Booker to arrive in time to subdue Krimson in a fight that had left him scarred both mentally and physically. Krimson had been sent to a mental hospital, from whence he'd promptly escaped and disappeared without a trace. It was assumed that he was long gone from the area, or maybe even dead, because he'd not killed again since - unless he'd changed his m.o., that is, unless the voices told him to it differently these days.

As he ran through it all again, Booker absent-mindedly rubbed the livid white line across his left cheek where Krimson had opened his face with a surgical scalpel and come to within half an inch of blinding him in one eye. His quarry seemed to have gone and stayed downstairs for the hour that Booker had watched, which didn't help at all, since the front window was boarded up. He knew that he should call it in and get a surveillance team in to do this job, but something told him to wait just a little longer. As is often the case, his gut instinct proved correct, because, once darkness had settled more fully, and the few unbroken streetlamps had flared into life, the front door opened. The figure that made its cautious exit was dressed in a three-quarter length, dirty grey trench coat, over jeans and sneakers, with a cap pulled down low over his face. He left the door wide open and opened the boot of a car parked in front of the neighbouring property. What the figure did next confirmed Bookers worst suspicions; he returned to the house and, with another furtive look up and down the street, he dragged a heavy sack out of the house and hefted it, with an obvious effort, into the boot of the car.

* * * *

Hermione strained against her restraints once again, still with no success at loosening the cords binding her wrists to a metal ring bolted to the wall above her head. She was weak and tired from her ordeal, which seemed to her to have gone on for much longer than the 15 days she had actually been imprisoned. Spent through exertion once more, she sagged, as much as her binding would allow her, against the cold brick wall of her cell. She had no idea where she was and had no memory of how she had got there, because she had been drugged, first with a chloroform soaked pad, applied from behind, and subsequently with enough anaesthetic to keep her unconscious until she could be safely stored away. Rendered sightless by the pitch darkness, she unconsciously strained to hear the faintest noise, but could only make out the faint droning of the fan that fed a weak stream of cold air into her subterranean prison.

Presently she heard the shuffling footfalls that signalled another visit from her monstrous captor, moments before the door squealed open. The light came on. The stark brightness of the naked bulb in the centre of the room stung her eyes after so long in the darkness. Blinking rapidly, fresh tears forming streaks in the grime on her cheeks, the room slowly swam into focus.
"Feeding time," grinned the misshapen thing in front of her, "Trev's good to you eh?"
The man, whom Hermione doubted was very good to anyone or anything, stood in front of her with a plateful of what appeared to be the same pureed slop she had lived on since her arrival. As he crammed spoonful after spoonful of the tasteless mush into her mouth, she couldn't help but regard, once again, her malformed captor. He looked as though he may have had a stroke, with the right side of his body, face, shoulder, arm and leg, possessing a certain slackness than made it hang lower than his 'normal' left side. His squinting right eye regarded her with malignant glee, whilst the bugged and bulging left eye roved wildly and ceaselessly about the room. Since he allowed her barely enough time to swallow her food before roughly inserting another spoonful, he spilled a good deal of this down her already soiled shirt and school tie. A glance down showed that a fair amount of the food also found its way on to his dirty overalls, so close did he stand to her, and since he'd shown no concern for cleaning two weeks worth of congealed pulp of his own clothes, there was little hope that he would clean hers.

When the plate was near empty Hermione shook her head, indicating that she could manage no more and Trevor placed the plate on the floor and replaced it at her lips with a plastic beaker of metallic tasting water. Brushing a few strands of Hermione's tangled hair out of her face; Trevor wiped a lump of food from beside her mouth with one greasy finger, which he proceeded to place in his own mouth and suck off the food with relish.
"Mmmm so tasty and sweet! A shame to waste, eh?" he said, stepping back and regarding her up and down, his squinty right eye narrowing yet more "A shame to waste…"

He bent and removed the slop bucket from its spot on the floor between her bare legs, where it was left to remove the need for toilet trips, and replaced it with a fresh one, pausing with his face near her stomach for a moment longer he really needed for the action. Standing again and placing the noisome bucket to one side, he again took a step towards her, a sinister light in his eyes.
"Her virtue must stay intact he says, but how will he know? How will he know eh?" he slurred, "How will he know if Trev has a little fun?" He was stood so close now that she could smell the alcohol on his clammy breath and she regarded with growing horror his left hand where it hovered, fingers twitching, inches from her belly. Renewed tears sprang from Hermione's eyes, in anticipation of what may come next, but then a noise sounded over her whimpering. A door opened and closed somewhere above, followed by footsteps on the floorboards overhead.
"Ah!" exclaimed Trevor, "He's come back! Not long now my dear, not long now that Krimson's here!"

* * * *

Booker watched as the car pulled away from the curb and headed off down the road. Having noted its registration number as it went, he used his mobile phone to inform the station of what he had seen, whilst jogging down the stairs and over the road. The door to the recently vacated house stood ajar so, since it seemed reasonable to assume that it was now empty, he entered. Donning a pair of surgical gloves, so as not to disturb any evidence that had been left, Booker began to search the lower floor of the building.

The place was a mess. It was immediately evident that no attempt at any kind of cleaning had been made here in some time. Food wrappers and other rubbish littered the floors and the whole place was as generally dirty and neglected as any derelict house. Perhaps, pondered Booker, the guy Krimson had dragged out of here was a squatter or tramp, if so then he was probably not the only one in this district.

The Kitchen was in a similar state to the rest of the house, with heavy water damage to the cupboard and flooring under the sink, where one of the old lead pipes had corroded, allowing a constant trickle of water to run through the gaps in the sodden floorboards. One of the small panes in the back door had been smashed inwards, the glass shards spread on the floor inside, marking this as the probable point of entry.

Tracking the likely path of an intruder, Booker headed into the living room, which was in a thoroughly unliveable state. A quick search yielded a discarded syringe, which may not have been entirely out of place in itself, but which was accompanied by an empty vial of chloral hydrate - an unsophisticated knockout drug. Apparently this was how the victim had been subdued, but it gave Booker pause for thought for two reasons. Firstly, Krimson was not known for his subtlety in such matters, so chloral hydrate was something of a departure from his style. Secondly, if Krimson had entered through the back door and injected his victim in the front room, why had he been upstairs, where Booker had spotted him, over an hour earlier?

A third, and to Booker's mind greater, cause for concern was a torn-open envelope, left on the floor by an over-turned armchair. The envelope itself was fairly incongruous, but the name it bore lead Booker to cast his mind back, once again, to his previous dealings with Krimson, it was addressed to 'Mr. Bane'. Booker recalled the tapes of the interview of Krimson by the police psychologist only too well, which was how he knew that Bane was the name Krimson gave to the voice that instructed him to kill and it was also the only name he answered to when his fits of frenzy came upon him. The appearance of a letter addressed to Bane here was beyond coincidence, something was very wrong with this whole picture.

"It would make no sense for Krimson to have brought an envelope with him, which means that it must already have been here." mused Booker aloud, "But in that case, either the victim stole it, or this is Krimson's house. But if this is Krimson's house then why the forced entry and the drugs, unless…"

"Unless Krimson was the victim." finished a strongly
Irish-accented voice from behind Booker. Spinning on his heel, Booker came to face the newcomer, a short middle-aged man, wearing a dark suit complete with the dog-collar of a Catholic priest.
"Who the hell are you and what are you doing here?" said Booker, so shocked by the sudden appearance that any kind of protocol left his head.
"I'm Father Adamson," said the priest, stepping from the doorway and pacing further into the room, "I've come help you."
"Help me? How?" replied Booker.
"I have two pieces of information that you may find valuable," said the priest, "I know why Krimson has been abducted, and I can guess where he's been taken."

As he pondered what to do next, Booker watched the door swing shut, under the impetus of a breeze through the open front and rear doors. Only then did he see what he had missed earlier, a letter K in drying blood.

* * * *

By the time Trevor had limped his way to the head of the stairs leading from the basement to the ground floor, the newcomer had dropped his burden on the floor, discarded his cap and coat and was in the process of lighting a cigarette.
"We've got lumps of it 'round the back!" he said, with an affected slur in mockery of Trevor's tone and physical posture, as well as his mental disposition.
"Ah, suit yourself." he added with a dismissive wave of his hand, when Trevor showed no sign of sharing his humour, "Take him to the basement. He's had a good dose of night-night medicine, so he shouldn't be any trouble for a while yet."

Trevor made no immediate move, but stood staring, ill-concealed contempt painting his twisted features.
"Well don't just stand there, you freak!" snapped the newcomer, exhaling smoke heavily through his nostrils "Make yourself useful and take Krimson down to your little dungeon!"
Trevor muttered something inaudible under his breath, but took hold of the neck of the large sack nonetheless and began to drag in towards the head of the stairs. He reached the top step and was about to proceed down when the theme tune to The Simpson's broke the tense silence, emanating from the 'phone in the other man's pocket. He promptly withdrew the 'phone and, glancing at the name on the display screen, answered the call.
"Sir?" he said.
"Do you have Krimson?" rumbled the deep voice on the line.
"Yes sir, he's been secured, Trevor's just dealing with him now, wait… where are you taking him Trev?" he said, as Trevor reversed his direction and began dragging Krimson's inert form back down the hallway.
"Leave Trevor to his work, he has his orders already."
"I don't understand sir."
"There will be no need for him to be held for any length, plans have had to be pushed forward. The ceremony will now be carried out tonight, despite that tomorrow provides the most favourable astral configuration."
"Very well Sir, what must I do now?"
"I have one final task for you Christopher. You acquired Krimson and the girl as I asked, but you went beyond your orders and killed twice more."
"Yes Sir," he replied with a nervous catch in his voice, "but I didn't think you'd object Sir, since it didn't interfere with your plans."
"You didn't think at all!" boomed the voice down the line, "Not only did you risk drawing attention to my operation, but you even left clues to your name at the scene!"
"Sir I…" he started, but was cut off.
"Now, the one final task I spoke of Christopher, is simple enough even for your limited capacity!"

Chris gasped loudly, not because of the tirade he was on the receiving end of, but because at that point an inch and a half of stainless steel had started out of his chest, at an upward angle, from just below the ribcage. The 'phone fell from nerveless fingers as the world blurred and shifted in Chris's vision, his legs buckled under him and he fell to his knees.
"DIE!" sounded the voice from the 'phone, coming to Chris's ears as though from a much greater distance than the 'phone on the floor, but clearly audible by virtue of the power of the voice on the line. Trevor withdrew the long kitchen-knife from Chris's back, crouched beside him where he knelt and viscously drew the blade across his throat. The cut was so deep that the gap in the front of his windpipe whistled briefly as his lungs fought to suck in a final breath, before the torrent of his life's blood, spilling from his severed jugular reduced the noise to a weak bubbling. Chris toppled forwards, dead before his face met the linoleum.
Trevor stooped to pick up the 'phone, his warped face alight with awful glee.
"He's dead Masster!" he slurred down the receiver, between excited pants.
"Excellent Trevor. Mr. Kay's body is yours to play with, so long as you leave no traces when you dispose of it."
"Thank you, Master." replied Trev, a trickle of drool escaping from the slack corner of his mouth.
"Now," said the voice, "You must make haste to meet me at the peak. Use the muscle relaxant to stop them struggling, rather than knock-out drugs - I want them both awake before the end."
"Trev will take care Master, Trev knows his work well!"
"Indeed." said the voice, with a touch of pride, "Unlike certain others, you never fail me! The priest and the policeman will be there before long, so be ready when they arrive. "
"Very good Masster" Trevor replied, nodding emphatically "Trevor will be ready! He-he hee, he-hee he-he-he-he ha ha ha haaa!"

* * * *

Against his better judgement, Booker had listened to what Fr. Adamson had to say, rather than immediately take him to the police station to obtain a formal statement. The unofficial statement the priest had given was too fantastical to be believed at any rate, so perhaps it was just as well he was operating outside standard protocol.
"Run through it for me, one more time Father." he said, his eyes not leaving the road ahead as he drove through the darkness.
"Very well my child," replied the Irishman, with a note of almost concealed exasperation, "Krimson and the schoolgirl Hermione, have been abducted because they are requirements in an occult ceremony, which I believe will be conducted tonight."
"Requirements?" prompted Booker, still struggling with the priest's explanation.
"I don't know all the details," came the reply "but I believe the ritual demands the sacrifice of a soul of madness and a soul of purity."
"And the purpose of the ritual?"
"'Tis a summoning," said the priest, "supposed to draw a demon of sorts, or at any rate a 'ting not o' Gods green Earth, from some other dimension, presumably to do the bidding of whomsoever should summon it."
"Right," said Booker, scepticism plain in his voice, "and that would be?"
"We, that is the church, believe it's a particularly nasty character called Dzon. He's not an easy man to find though; hence I've been tracking your man."

Booker nodded, the same name had come up a number of times in connection the upper echelons of a variety of criminal operations, but nobody seemed to have any idea who he was. Booker still didn't know what to believe. The fact that all this came from a priest lent the story a degree of credence, without which he would have rejected the whole thing out of hand, but it all still seemed too fabulous. The only reasonable way to approach the situation, Booker told himself, was that IF Dzon had somehow come across a summoning ritual of some kind and IF he had been crazy enough to try it, then the lives of Hermione and Krimson were probably in very real and immediate danger, so Booker really had no choice but to follow this through.

As for the identity of the K killer, a check of the licence number of the car seen leaving Krimson's house revealed that it was registered to one Christopher Kay. Although it seemed remarkable that he would use his own car whilst carrying out a kidnapping, the name did have a K in it and the address given had proven to be false, unless the killer genuinely lived in a public toilet. Assuming therefore that Kay was the man Booker was after, he must be either very stupid or supremely confident, either of which suggested that he would slip up sooner or later.
Having first checked out what had proven to be a false address, Booker had given in to the priest's insistence and headed for the one place in the city that was a suitable site for the summoning - the top of the Green Man - the highest hill in the greenbelt land abutting the Park. As they passed through the large wrought iron gates, under a stone arch emblazoned with the legend "Luton Memorial Park", Booker reduced his speed and dimmed the lights on his ford. They were almost there.

* * * *

Booker pulled up some way short of his destination and switched off the engine, before setting out on foot along with Fr. Adamson. In silence they climbed the steep, scarp face of the hill, keeping low to the ground to avoid being seen. As they neared the peak Booker reeled and staggered, impelled forward by a heavy blow to the back of the head. Losing his balance he fell and, as his face met the cold earth. Consciousness fled him.

Booker opened his eyes groggily and winced as pain lanced though his skull. He instinctively tried to raise a hand to his head, to inspect the injury, but discovered that his hands were bound behind his back; somebody had tied him to a rough wooden post with coarse string around his wrists. The hilltop before him was lit by a small but intense fire, burning directly in front of him and perhaps a dozen feet away, the flames dancing fitfully in the blustery wind. The area outside the firelight was almost impenetrably dark since the brightness of the firelight made the illumination offered by the weak moonlight appear even dimmer by comparison. For the moment though, his attention was drawn to activity within the firelight, as two figures approached from the other side of the blaze.

"Ah, awake now are we." said Fr Adamson as he came closer. "For a moment there I thought that tap on the head had done for you!" he said, with a grin that was mirrored by the lop-sided person beside him. The other was wearing filthy overalls, covered in blood and looked like he ought to be called Igor and be the henchman of some impressive eastern-European Count, which was in fact not so very far from the truth.
"I can see from your expression that you're a little confused, well allow me to enlighten you." Adamson continued, "You see, I am a priest, but I saw the light some time ago, since when I've been working with the esteemed Mr Dzon, whose acquaintance you'll be making shortly. The other thing you may like to know is that this ceremony doesn't involve the sacrifice of two souls, unfortunately for you officer, it needs t'ree!"
At that moment a third figure loomed behind the dark priest, placing one hand upon his left shoulder and taking a firm grip of his throat with the other.
"Ahhh," came the bass rumbling of what could only be Mr. Dzon, "but there you are also mistaken, Father. This ritual actually requires four souls; a soul of purity, a soul of madness, the soul of an honourable man and the soul of a holy man turned black!"
The priest was visibly shaking, the sardonic expression melting from his face and being replaced with one of starkest terror. The newcomer was tall and athletically built, dark haired and dressed in an expensive black suit and black shirt. The priest was either unwilling or unable to struggle against his captor and was lead to Booker's left, coughing and wheezing as he tried to breath though constricted airways. It became apparent that another post had been placed over there, in the darkness just beyond the circle of light, forming a right angle with Booker and the fire and roughly as far from the flames as Booker himself. To this post the priest was bound, without protest, by Dzon's misshapen henchman. Looking to his right, Booker could now make out a third post, where he had assumed it would be, opposite that to which the priest was secured. Tied to the post was the bedraggled form of a young girl, sagging drowsily against her bonds; this then would be Hermione. Presently a voice sounded above the gusting wind, from the far side of the fire where the flames obscured Bookers view, venting a stream of obscenities punctuated with an almost animal barking and grunting.

All the while Booker was working at breaking his bonds; rubbing the bindings against a notch in the wood of the post and slowly fraying the rough cords around his wrists. Dzon strolled close to the fire with his back to Fr. Adamson, and began to murmur a collection of unidentifiable, throaty syllables, his deep voice rising and falling rhythmically. Shortly after Dzon had taken up his chant, the Igor character returned to Fr. Adamson from the darkness, baring a long curved knife, with which he open up the throat of the priest from ear to ear. Blood spurted from the wound and the priest thrashed wildly against his bonds, but within seconds the massive blood loss took its inevitable toll and he slumped forwards, held up only by he cords binding his hands.

"Igor" trudged away to the far side of the fire, leaving the dead priest to drip blood, its flow slowed to a trickle by the cessation of heart-function, into the dark pool at his feet. Booker looked on in horror, stunned by the suddenness with which the situation had grown terribly worse. As he continued to stare at the fresh corpse of the priest, still robotically working at his bonds, Booker noticed something stirring at the priest's feet, a stream of blood began to flow from the pool towards the fire, up the slight incline! It was impossible but it was happening, the blood was flowing uphill, following a non-existent runnel. When the blood passed between the Dzon's feet, reached the base of the fire and began to be consumed, the flames grew perceptibly brighter and the chanting louder.

A choked cry from the far side of the fire announced that Krimson had followed the priest into oblivion and within another minute the flames grew brighter, presumably fed anew by Krimson's blood. With the passing moments the clouds overhead parted to reveal a space vacant of stars but filled, rather than with the infinite blackness of space, with a pale luminescence. By the time Hermione's blood was added to the growing conflagration the wind had grown in strength to a howling gale, whipping the flames frenziedly. Throughout the proceedings Booker had rubbed his fraying bindings against the post with increasing fervour, leaving them ragged but still firm and slick with blood seeping from his torn wrists.

Trevor approached Booker, the ceremonial knife in his hand dripping blood and behind and above him in the glowing space in the sky, something stirred. Writhing tentacles lashed at an unseen barrier in the sky, claws scratching and teeth gnashing noiselessly as the nightmare thing fought to gain entry to a dimension it was never intended to darken with its presence. Dzon, his back turned to Booker, raised his head and bellowed his incantation above the roaring wind, raising his arms to the heavens as a column of light reached from the fire all the way up to the rift in the sky. With strength bourn of terror, Booker wrenched at the remaining cords around his wrists, splitting them at last and barrelling forwards into the advancing form of Trevor. The two men tumbled to the ground, Booker scrabbling to his feet first and seizing the dagger, which had come free of Trevor's grip. Dzon turned to face Booker as he ran headlong into him, his momentum driving the dagger deep into Dzon's chest. In the sky above, the circle flickered and dimmed and the first member of the giant demoniac thing forced it's way through the weakening barrier, the aberrant limb shredding clouds as it cut the air in wild sweeps.

With a thunderclap, the gap in the clouds closed up, the barrier between the universes returned to full strength by the interruption of the ritual. Such monstrous limbs as had reached through were severed on the instant, raining down as steaming ribbons that had disintegrated before ever reaching the ground. Dzon's face, at first painted with his shock and surprise, quickly became darkened by anger.
"Fool!" he boomed, "You thought that I was summoning a beast to do my bidding, but you were wrong..." Tentacles lined with sharp barbs shot out from within his jacket, grappling Booker's hands and arms where he still gripped the hilt of the dagger, scourging his face and torso and pulling him towards the thrashing maelstrom of Dzon's still unfurling innards. Dzon was impossibly tall and massive now, his still growing form rippling under his similarly expanded clothes as he bellowed,
"I WAS SUMMONING A MATE!"
 

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