Scent and Ascent
Master says I’m not supposed to leave the ziggurat. So I don’t. But I like to climb to the top and glimpse out across the green jungle. Master thinks I sleep all day, but I always stay awake long enough to see the sea of leaves below our mountains. But then I see the humans coming down the path from the village and climbing the steep stairs. When they’re halfway to the top, I have to scurry back to my special chamber deep underground. I’m very careful.
Then I sleep, and I dream of Master. He teaches me how to pretend to be something I’m not. Like a human. Or a snake. Master teaches me how to hunt, and how to protect myself. He teaches me about magic. Master knows so much, and he says I have to learn it all quickly. Read the rest of this entry »
Episode 3: The Mystery of the Mistress
“Just tell me what I want, and I’ll put the knife away. It’s as simple as that.”
“Never!”
Viktor sighed. With a casual wave of his fingers, the silver dagger floating above the bound man’s neck pricked his ear, then traced a line on the canvas of the straitjacket.
That’s the scary part — when you move the dagger out of sight. His breathing quickens every time I do it. How intriguing. Read the rest of this entry »
Horror Given Birth
The heavy silence surrounding the rusting freighter that was anchored in the harbor was broken suddenly by muted guttural roars and the faint sounds of flesh wetly slapping on bloody flesh.Within the ship’s cavernous hold, Minerva watched as her mutant creation feasted on the corpses — mostly itinerant sailors and harbor drunkards — that her minions had been gathering for weeks. This mutant is so methodical, she thought. Time after time, the muscular thing would shuffle over to a distended corpse, bellow at it, then whip back the seaweedlike growths along its spine. Then it pummeled its meal into a bloody jelly with its massive forearms before drooping its mouth-tentacles into the ruin of flesh and splintered bone. After consuming the corpse with a wet slurping, it shuffled over to a new corpse and roared at it, beginning again. Read the rest of this entry »
Carnival of Carnage
As he clambered up the beams of the wooden roller coaster, Viktor paused to listen to the screams wafting up from the tangle of track below. Shouts and screams are an ordinary part of the background noise of an amusement park, mixing with the calliope music, the shouting barkers, and the laughter of children at play. But as he neared the top of the coaster, Viktor heard the character of the screams change. The screams drew themselves out and became shriller, then started to undulate as the screamers gasped briefly to draw breath, then continue their scream.
Those aren’t roller-coaster screams, Viktor thought. That means the hunt has begun. Read the rest of this entry »
