Here Be Monsters - an Anthology of Monster Tales by India Drummond, S M Reine, Jeremy C. Shipp, M. T. Murphy, Sara Reinke, Samantha Anderson, Anabel Portillo, Ian Sharman, Jose Manuel Portillo Barientos, Alissa Rindels Page B
Authors: India Drummond, S M Reine, Jeremy C. Shipp, M. T. Murphy, Sara Reinke, Samantha Anderson, Anabel Portillo, Ian Sharman, Jose Manuel Portillo Barientos, Alissa Rindels
Tags: Horror
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steam. She inhaled deeply, waiting for the water to reach the perfect temperature. The Witch stepped under the high-pressure shower and let it wash the darkness from her mind. After the initial relief, she felt an uncomfortable tension creeping through her body. She was rooted to the spot. Gasping, she looked around for the source of the pressure choking her. In the thickening steam, a pattern on the ceiling revealed itself. Chalk lines of an iridescent glow. A practiced hand had drawn a circle above the shower, complete with cabalistic symbols that made her insides burn. The runes hurt the roots of her eyes.
The Witch stood under the high-pressure cascade, screaming without sound, while the soluble contents of a muslin pouch stuffed inside the showerhead mixed with the water. Alchemy-chemistry, magic and science poured down in burning droplets, rising into the fine mist, dissolving every inch of her perfectly bewitching creamy caramel skin.
*****
Lux could almost taste the bone-dust chalk on the smell of her hands. She rubbed them against her jeans but the hairspray (a spur of the moment inspiration) had fixed it to her skin as well as to the ceiling.
From a park bench two blocks away, she closed her mind to the telepathic howls and sent the text message. In the buildings around her, babies woke up screaming, dogs whimpered, cats’ fur bristled.
Her mind was exhausted from the strain of allowing herself to be read while keeping the little corners hidden under everything else.
Her own perception was perhaps stronger than the Witch’s but it was triggered by emotion, rather than will, and her instinct had been to hide it from the beautiful woman she had to kill.
Her list was nearing completion. She didn’t want to count, just move on to the next target, research and execute, but she was very aware of the refrigerated chamber where the Doctor kept the remains of his subjects.
For future examination. For secrecy. For Lux to never forget. Each one of them had possessed a weakness; each had to die in the right way. Some methods were cleaner than others. Eyes of the seer, skin of the witch, spine of the wall-crawler, heart of the beast, voice of the enchanter… A long list.
*****
The Machine was a nest of glass tubing. Pipettes, alembics, distillation chambers, retorts, cooling domes and refining filters, like something out of a museum. At the end that connected to the subject, the technology became high end medical equipment, all polished steel, pure porcelain and sterile needles.
It was a mind-boggling contraption of science spanning five centuries. No need to wait for a lightning bolt, though. The Doctor had devised a less capricious catalyst.
But Lux had been its last subject. Or, rather, the last surviving one.
The labyrinthine instrument slept in a long-abandoned room, gathering what little dust made its way though the air filters down here. In the beginning, building it in the farthest corner had been a necessary inconvenience, so the screams would not be heard. Lux remembered the screams.
The others, the ones that stopped so abruptly.
And her own. Over and over.
She didn’t tell him about her nightmares anymore, so he assumed they were gone. Forgotten. He thought she was transparent to him, a simple lab rat. However, she had thoughts, when he wasn’t looking, and she kept secrets. Truths. Memories.
She had never been fully awake inside the machine. There was hypnosis, those bright oscillating trinkets, and the bitter juices poured into her mouth.
Her memories were in her dreams. For years, she fought to shut them out, but now Lux listened to them, dove into the remembered agony and examined every detail her five-year-old subconscious had retained by binding it to horrors.
Her examination of the machine, aided by research of science old and new, had reached an intriguing conclusion. The contraption was quite whole, if slightly disassembled, but the linchpin was missing. There was a hollow space in the
The Witch stood under the high-pressure cascade, screaming without sound, while the soluble contents of a muslin pouch stuffed inside the showerhead mixed with the water. Alchemy-chemistry, magic and science poured down in burning droplets, rising into the fine mist, dissolving every inch of her perfectly bewitching creamy caramel skin.
*****
Lux could almost taste the bone-dust chalk on the smell of her hands. She rubbed them against her jeans but the hairspray (a spur of the moment inspiration) had fixed it to her skin as well as to the ceiling.
From a park bench two blocks away, she closed her mind to the telepathic howls and sent the text message. In the buildings around her, babies woke up screaming, dogs whimpered, cats’ fur bristled.
Her mind was exhausted from the strain of allowing herself to be read while keeping the little corners hidden under everything else.
Her own perception was perhaps stronger than the Witch’s but it was triggered by emotion, rather than will, and her instinct had been to hide it from the beautiful woman she had to kill.
Her list was nearing completion. She didn’t want to count, just move on to the next target, research and execute, but she was very aware of the refrigerated chamber where the Doctor kept the remains of his subjects.
For future examination. For secrecy. For Lux to never forget. Each one of them had possessed a weakness; each had to die in the right way. Some methods were cleaner than others. Eyes of the seer, skin of the witch, spine of the wall-crawler, heart of the beast, voice of the enchanter… A long list.
*****
The Machine was a nest of glass tubing. Pipettes, alembics, distillation chambers, retorts, cooling domes and refining filters, like something out of a museum. At the end that connected to the subject, the technology became high end medical equipment, all polished steel, pure porcelain and sterile needles.
It was a mind-boggling contraption of science spanning five centuries. No need to wait for a lightning bolt, though. The Doctor had devised a less capricious catalyst.
But Lux had been its last subject. Or, rather, the last surviving one.
The labyrinthine instrument slept in a long-abandoned room, gathering what little dust made its way though the air filters down here. In the beginning, building it in the farthest corner had been a necessary inconvenience, so the screams would not be heard. Lux remembered the screams.
The others, the ones that stopped so abruptly.
And her own. Over and over.
She didn’t tell him about her nightmares anymore, so he assumed they were gone. Forgotten. He thought she was transparent to him, a simple lab rat. However, she had thoughts, when he wasn’t looking, and she kept secrets. Truths. Memories.
She had never been fully awake inside the machine. There was hypnosis, those bright oscillating trinkets, and the bitter juices poured into her mouth.
Her memories were in her dreams. For years, she fought to shut them out, but now Lux listened to them, dove into the remembered agony and examined every detail her five-year-old subconscious had retained by binding it to horrors.
Her examination of the machine, aided by research of science old and new, had reached an intriguing conclusion. The contraption was quite whole, if slightly disassembled, but the linchpin was missing. There was a hollow space in the
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