©️ March 10, 2011
Originally posted on my DeviantArt. Winner of the online group Horror-Stories March contest. Published by the club’s administrator in a limited print small independent press anthology called Deviant Nightmares in fall of 2011. (Out of print).
True to his scouting, the sprawling house in the woods stood proud before him, lifeless and stark. The old man’s mourners had ignored superstition and left the building vacant, as ready as a virgin at the first promise of love for plucking by the suitor with a sense of timing. Simon had left his car two or three miles back along the deserted road, tucked against the knee-deep drift under the cover of shadow and overhanging pine boughs. All he’d brought with him in his gloved hands were the lock picks—momentarily in his right pocket—the flashlight in his left hand, and the crowbar tight against his leg in his right. Simon guessed the lock picks should carry the day for him, but he figured it was best to come prepared in case the door proved stubborn. Snow glittered in the sky like a heavy rain of sugar, enough to cover his tracks in and out. He was a vulture, and here spread a ripe carrion feast, begging with its bloat for him to unburden it before lesser scavengers drew near. Simon was happy to oblige.
The lock clicked and sighed in eager release, drawing him into the petticoats of the main room wrapped on both sides with curving stairs, the polished chestnut thighs framing the pulsating fireplace, kissed in magnificent fieldstone from mantel to floor and still warm with sighing cherry coals. She was ready, waiting, and beckoning her lover to strip her down, and discover every jewel and valuable, challenging him to find her very own sweet spot, the safe. The old man might have lived his last years a miser, but this shining hall alone boasted the wealth ferreted away within. He would only have a few hours. The darkness caressed him, urging him deeper in.
Simon threw his head back and laughed at his luck, rubbing his hands together eagerly, and caught a glimpse of the broad skylights filled with snow, further darkening the room. As he did so, his snow-wet heel skidded on a blue white powder that enclosed the door in a tight arch. Simon landed hard on his rear a few feet inside of a greater hemisphere marked in golden white silt engulfing the elegant room, with the fireplace as its epicenter. This greater design flared ablaze at the touch.
Simon shrieked, scrambling backwards crablike, his wet feet unable to find purchase, his hands wildly smacking at his body and the flames. Putting those on his coat out, he vaguely grasped that the flames had no heat. Knowing that must be impossible, Simon used his hands to carefully clamber to his feet, and backed toward the door, eyes darting for danger—or some explanation for the light show. A chill inched up his spine, running its fingers through his scalp, and his intestines huddled together for warmth and reassurance. He noticed some sort of writing or symbols marked the outside of the gold circle, but he had no idea if they meant anything. Crazy old fart must’ve been fingerpainting or something when he kicked the bucket. Who knew? Senility, dementia, Simon wouldn’t let any of those things take him in the end. He’d kill himself first. He would never relinquish his dignity!
The air blistered. A horrible squelching sound as of that of heavy furniture shoved violently out of place resounded between his vertebrae. Simon had the wrenching sensation that something had torn, something that couldn’t be—should never be—torn, oozing an evil miasma into the room and stirring evilness to take wind, bunch its muscles and prepare to spring forth. Simon gagged on the clogging bitter stench of brimstone, covering his face with his right forearm, the flashlight wildly sketching demons on the shadowed wall recessed far to the right.
The dog exploded out of the fireplace. If he wasn’t stark raving mad, Simon swore to it. The damn thing just sprang at him out of nowhere. One second, he had the empty room, lit by dying embers giving up the ghost to the edge of night. The next, a hound, bigger than any he’d ever seen—big as a pony even—burst right out of the perishing fire. How anything fit in that little crawlspace was beyond him. How it had crouched there with the coals branding foot and flank, God only knew.
The great hound stood tall in the center of the room, its black, black fur bristling in fierce needle-fine spines. The thick coat shook over the twitching bunched muscles rippling from neck to hock. The magnificent beast married the traits of a doberman and a rottweiler, sans the rust markings. The chest spread deep and stocky, the stomach narrowing before fanning to meet the strong, stout rear legs. The ebony legs stretched long for speed, the muscles thick to promise endurance. In the blackness where the dying embers alone lined the creature’s features, the skull whispered the massive, ripping jowls of the rottweiler line along with a tapered questing snout of the doberman. The short, ragged ears, bitten nearly to shreds swiveled sharply about the room. Simon’s heart screamed inside his chest and plunged to get free of the body frozen rock-still in terror. Snuffling, the dog swung it’s fierce, sleek head back and forth, its stumpy tail wagging in excitement at the prospect of quarry. A rumbling boomed through the house, loud enough to split the earth beneath. Cold fire snapped down Simon’s spine as he saw the dog lower its head, the eyes like twin cherries of cigarettes locked on him. That wasn’t an earthquake—that was the thing growling! Simon swore to God the thing smiled at him. When it lunged, Simon skidded for the door.
Simon smacked the door behind him, hard as he could, hoping to break it over the monster’s face, doubting it would do enough damage to slow it down. A sickening crack sent Simon sliding wildly across the ice in the tire tracks of the driveway, squealing as he stumbled back onto the snow and dug his toes in and bolted forward.
With a deep-chested bellow that shook the trees, the hellhound shot after Simon, bounding lightly across snow and ice alike, the feet lifting free to leave smoking scorched paw prints behind. The creature burst into flame, waves of heat licking down its shoulders and loins, flames curling about each pounding foot. The fire wrapped the massive inky face, flickering about the edges lovingly. The fur along the snout and dancing along to gaping rotten openings along throat and bared belly flinched in constantly fresh singe. The worst horror waited beneath. The beast had been gutted. All that survived were the molten core dripping lava and writhing fiendish maggots clinging desperately to what life they might eke out in the perpetually cooking flesh. Every step split the beast’s skin down the middle, spewing forth a bigger and bigger creature.
With a pathetic squeal, Simon spun about again and fled madly down the dark lane.
The beast now fairly reached his chest and easily outweighed him twice over. If the thing leapt, Simon would find himself buried in a snowdrift, scorched by its belly and boiled by the snowdrift beneath long before those snapping jaws almost the length of his arms closed on his face. Every ounce of fat had been shaved off the beast’s form, and from its bones to its muscles the monster had been hammered and cooled and hammered again to savage perfection by the Devil’s choicest blacksmiths. It could endure any pain. It already had. It could not tire. It would never stop. It had been broken and shattered and regurgitated for one vile purpose: to kill.
There was no hope in heaven or hell that Simon could outrun this creature. He’d never even make it to the end of the driveway, much less in sight of his car. Faster! he screamed at his wildly flailing muscles, faster, goddamnit! He willed the beast to slip on the ice, to pull up lame, anything, as he pumped his arms and legs for all he was worth. Trees whipped by in the wintry haze before him. Snow flecked his cheeks. Simon ignored everything but the magma-hot panting so close behind him, dampening his frozen coat. He knew if he tripped, he’d slide straight down the fiend’s gullet.
In a moment of epiphany, Simon lunged to his left, choosing his chances with the unpredictable forest rather than the ice his enemy coating the clear path to the road. Branches whipped his face, and the heavy drifts tugged at his feet, but Simon charged on, praying for all he was worth on every stolen breath. The heat at his back lessened, he thought. Triumphantly he blazed on, beelining for where his car ought to be parked. Sweet Jesus, he thought as his lungs surged for the next burning gasp, by some miracle, he might just make it! Simon risked an elated glance back over his shoulder to gauge just how much of a lead he’d made over the rougher terrain.
The creature loped easily within two lengths behind him, lava tongue lolling out of one side of its torn mouth, dripping sparks of spittle as it kept pace with him. The damn thing might only have a smoking coat and coals for its eyes, but Simon knew it was smiling—laughing even—mocking his pitiful mortal efforts.
Yelping in terror, Simon tripped over a white-blanketed root, but managed to keep his feet and back-pedal for all he was worth. It was too late. Simon knew the beast had bested him, and even now merely toyed with him as any hunter did with its food. It was only a matter of time. The question was, did he want to go out squealing for mercy or did he want to hold onto some sense of dignity?
As the hound closed, Simon looked full into its horrific face. The rotting jaws closed as the head tipped back, showing scalding lava drip down its open throat. The damn thing burned alive from within! It hadn’t been his imagination! The reek of charred flesh and sulphur had nothing to do with its birthing place in hell, but in the horrific veins of the monster itself! It’s short fur singed from within as the beast fed upon its own tissues! And the howl that broke, the horrible baying that marked the walking dead, shook the earth beneath his feet and left Simon skittering like a beetle helpless on its back. The howl engulfed the entire forest, echoing from east to west, before snaking about Simon, latching his ankle and snatching it out from under him.
Simon screamed in pain, struggling to regain his feet. It was no use. His ankle had twisted enough to sprain it. His choice now taken from him, Simon clamped his mouth shut and tried to crawl backwards in a desperate move to find a way to make a last stand. As he moved, his back met solidly with a tree trunk behind him. His right hand also closed firmly on the crowbar that he’d forgotten in his raw terror. He clenched it tightly, and watched acutely for the demon’s next move.
The dog lifted itself onto its hind legs, erupting with a sweet sinister sound melding the jaws of metal grinding on metal and deep deep drums bellowing forth from its lungs. From its fearsome maw of crooked fangs and too fleshless to make sense of its features crawled forth the howl, a blue frost rolling off its tongue, piercing the cold air, preceding the full cavern-deep rumbling that unabashedly scorched the night sky, as shameless as dragon’s breath.
The lips pulled back permanently from the slavering jaws lined with double rows of stained oversized fangs, each yearning to punch a hole in Simon half as thick as his wrist. The diseased gums gleamed, clearly seen with the eagerly writhing pink tongue between the thick threads of remaining jowl. The thing’s sockets steamed in the cold night air, empty of eyes and reborn with smouldering coals more effective to unleash hate.
The heart, the great pumping magma core, swelled and contracted, illuminating the slat ribs in stark relief, brightly visible through the mucous thin skin. The fur bristled so black it swallowed the light, sucking it in from the waxing moon and ripe stars, guzzling it from the golden gleaming reflections of its own wicked self off the snow steaming. The core of magma stretched low to the ground as the great brute knelt as a new puppy eager to play with its master.
Simon forced a sharp breath in. Good God, this was it. This was it.
The hellhound leapt. Simon slammed the crowbar up across his body, braced with both hands and along his chest. The long end yearned upward like a desperate metal lover. Simon tucked his face aside, the deafening silence stretched limitlessly as he waited for the inevitable killing impact.
A screeching wrench popped the air before him as Simon was flattened harder against the sturdy trunk—the unmistakable squelch of metal on metal. Fleetingly, he thought, I’ve dreamed all this. It’s just a car accident. But when hope peeled open his eyes, ashes fell onto Simon’s face, soft as snow. The massive black beast sprawled over him, the legs limp to either side, the face a breath away from his own, and the crowbar buried into its chest. Simon was so overwhelmed he wept for joy.
The dog’s head cocked to one side, then the other, and in horror, Simon realized the beast had him pinned with its weight and strong limbs. Then, the jaws moved, emitting a voice to match the metal scraping and furnace of smoke.
“A hunger you cannot quell,
a thirst you cannot quench,
I expel on you with my last breath
an emptiness whole—
etched into your soul—
I pass my curse to you with my death
as you too will play the barghest.”
The massive head dropped, and the lava blood oozed down the bar and from the stomach onto Simon. He screamed and screamed at such excruciating pain. But when his very limbs twitched into new positions, reconfiguring their shapes, Simon howled anew—a deep, throaty bellow that could never be filled—he realized he problems had only just begun.
Mischa Fox 