Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-25148755-20180213045808

Hey, all. I've been working on my submission for Helel's contest and am looking to get some initial feedback. A bit of background: like a lot of my contest entries, I am looking to work this one into my ongoing Wicker Saga. Unlike some of these contests that I really have to stretch the topic to make it fit, having been assigned the Black Sabbath song of the same name in which the singer confronts a demonic entity who 'chooses' them, is actually not proving too much of a challenge for me to work into the underlying mythos. My character, Frank Lawrence, who started off as an abusive father in 'A Figure in the Fog' before ultimately being turned into 'Her Red Right Hand,' was turned into an engine of unholy terror and destruction by my primary antagonist, The Woman in White. I've chosen to use that transformation as the basis for my story, fleshing out scenes from previous stories but from Frank's perspective in a sort of fever dream. But it's getting super dark and I want to make sure it's working as a standalone, not just as part of the Saga. It's obviously not done yet, I'm maybe a third or half of the way through. But if anyone could give me some preliminary thoughts I'd surely appreciate them. - "Sabbath"

''The…the dark. God, so dark. Can’t feel, can’t think, can’t…  I’m floating in the black. My God there’s nothing here but me. Am I dying? Am I…dead?''

Can I move?

I lift my hands in front of me. Don’t want to stumble blindly into a wall. ''Jesus! ''

''Something, I touched something. What the hell… '' Movement, in the black.

“Fraaaank.”

Who’s there? “Fraaaaaaank!”

''Mary? Mary is that you, baby? God, baby, I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you!''

Light then, blinding, bright, so so bright.

I’m somewhere else, I recognize this place. My living room. I look down, there’s a beer in one hand, my belt in the other. I gaze up to see my wife huddled in the far corner. She stares at me through one good eye, the other swollen the size of a grapefruit. Her hands reach out to me, pleading. It’s like she doesn’t recognize me.

Baby…

Who did this to her?

Movement, behind me.

I turn, fast as lightning. A boy stands behind me. It’s my boy, Jamie, my firstborn. There’s fear in his eyes, tears threatening to overflow, the baseball bat cocked over his shoulder barely more than a twig. He screams and swings. I drop the belt and rattlesnake quick pluck it from his trembling hands.

“You little shit.”

''What? No. Those aren’t my words. Can’t be!''

A hand darts out. My hand. I feel the impact as my knuckles make contact with the side of his head, rocking him back.

No. God, no!!

It doesn’t stop. God, it doesn’t stop. My fist crushes the boy’s chest.

“Think you’re man enough to take a swing at me, huh?”

I rage on the inside, screaming, crying.

My son is crumpled on the ground, my foot lashes out to strike his face, his ribs, over and over again, hard angles growing soft. I feel him break.

“See how you like a taste of your own medicine, boy.”

The hand, my hand, somehow (impossibly), God, it’s my hand that raises the bat. Jamie’s eyes grow wide. God, how are they so wide? It’s like they’re going to split the sides of his skull they’re so wide.

''Oh. Oh. Jesus. Please, God, Jesus and all the angels, please don’t, no nono…''

The bat descends. The world is in slow motion. I see my wife’s face in the corner of my eye. Such…hatred. Rage. Impotent rage. When did she first start to hate me?

We were in love once. Weren’t we? God, if we were, how did we ever get to here? What was so bad in the world that we could ever reach this place?

''Move, Jamie. Please move.''

The bat descends, so slow I can count the grains of its shaft.

Please move.

Closer, closer to the soft skull that will surely cave in.

Please.

Closer.

FUCKING MOVE!

Blackness.

Impossible, inky blackness. Again, like the living room was never there. Never happened.

But it did.

I collapse upon my knees to the unseen floor, weeping. Weeping for what was, and for what could have been.

''God, am I dead? Do the dead cry?''

I don’t know how long I stay like that, drowning in my own misery, before I become aware of the presence in front of me.

Where the other dark I’m wrapped in is just emptiness waiting passively to be filled, the substance of the creature before me now is hungry, a malevolent void, somehow even blacker than the pitch I am trapped in, actively consuming even those untraceable remnants of light. It points at me there in the black, somehow even without seeing I know it points at me, just as I know its unseen face holds a mouth far too wide filled with far too many teeth that are far too sharp, just as I know the soft drip drip dripping sound I hear is drool trickling from its mouth at the thought of a meal soon to come.

“Chooooseeeeeen.”

Its voice echoes throughout the cavernous dark, the shear immensity of it rolling over and through me, churning guts I’m not sure I still have, raising hairs and goosebumps on arms that might only exist in my mind, cascading like deep peals of distant thunder. And, somehow, despite the terrifying nature of this summons, I find myself rising to my feet and, like a puppet on a string, haltingly taking a step towards the creature.

God, no. Please.

I shuffle closer to its extended arm, unwilling, fighting with every ounce of my being, closer to the pointing finger I know (beyond shadow of a doubt) is tipped with a wickedly sharp claw waiting to be dug into my eyesocket, plucking that tastiest of morsels away and popping it into the too wide mouth to be crushed into creamy jelly by the too many (far too many) too sharp teeth.

I fight, bones and muscles that may not even be there screaming from the effort. I feel something tear, deep on the inside, followed by a flash of pain, like a piece of my soul has been torn away.

Doesn’t matter.

It doesn’t. The pain forces focus, lets me break free from the hold of the thing. Lets me turn and run, run stumblingly away, far away from the deep throated too many teethed thing waiting to eat my eyes, pop them between its teeth into jelly.

My feet catch on the ground I can’t see and I sprawl hard, scraping my cheek as I fall. Lights flash like fireworks dancing flittingly bright in the summer sky as my face bounces against the surface. I shake my head, trying to extinguish the spots and realize I can see again.

Pale light from the sun floats through a broken window far above me. I feel…different, somehow. I recognize where I am, the meat factory I’ve spent so many years of my life, murdering cattle with well-placed sledgehammer blows to the head, slashing their throats and letting the brackish blood empty out of their lifeless bodies.

The building is familiar, yet not, older and more rundown than I ever remember it. Like my surroundings my own sense of self seems somehow…off.

I’m myself, but why do I feel so strange?

As if in answer I catch my reflection in a small cracked mirror hanging lopsidedly from the wall, a stranger staring back at me. Long, greasy dark hair falls in a shower around the jowls of my heavyset face, a face covered in suspicious blots of red.

I become aware of a weight in my hand and, involuntarily raising it to inspect, find I am holding a small knife, the sort you might use to fillet a fish. A moan draws my attention across the room where I spy a woman chained face down on a table. The evidence of extensive abuse is all too clear, several cameras arranged around her to record what is clearly a torture session.

Oh, God, I have to help her.

I try to rush to the woman’s side but instead find myself moving toward her with a slow, jaunty step. I see she has been chained, the links of her restraints so tight that at some points her skin has chaffed away, her wrists and ankles raw and red as hamburger. My stomach turns as I see where she is missing several fingers and toes, the stumps black from where they have been crudely cauterized shut.

“Please…” her voice is barely a whisper, the word wet and mushy from a mouth missing most of its teeth.

Don’t worry. I try to tell her. ''I’ll help you. I’ll get you out of here.''

But what comes out is an alien voice instead.

“You begging for it again? Sluts just can’t get enough. Guess that’s where your brats got it from.”

My gaze shifts to the right and my unconscious, helpless mind starts to scream at the sight of three little girls, similarly abused, similarly strapped face down on tables, horrifically unmoving. Their backs, dear lord, the skin from their backs has been removed and nailed to the wall behind them like canvas, the words painted on them a crimson hue matching the spatters marking my face.

God, no, God, no please please please wake up wake up….

“Ah well. Work to be done, darlin’. Maybe after though.”

My hands are moving of their own accord, one holding her skin taut, the other taking the knife and ever so slowly making an incision along her shoulders with the careful precision of a surgeon. The woman convulses under the touch of the blade, the agony of her inarticulate screams growing higher in pitch as the knife slides through her flesh.

“Stop moving, you’re gonna fuck this up.”

My hand holding the knife cuffs the back of her head sharply, her face smashing against the table.

Her thrashing stops though her moans continue and my hand resumes the cut, red blood welling wherever the blade touches. At last, the human parchment is complete and I peel it from its former owner with a moist squelching sound. Humming a little tune, I carry it over to the wall by its fellows and, retrieving a hammer and several penny nails, tack it up beside them.

Jesus Christ…

“And for the finishing touch.”

Continuing my ditty I return to the woman where she continues to lie twitching. I grab the sides of the table and, my observing mind realizing it has wheels attached to its four legs, swing it about and give it a shove, bracing myself on my arms and riding it like a young child might a shopping cart. The woman emits a sharp cry as the table crashes into the wall.

“Aw, shaddup, ya thirsty bitch. I’ll get to ya in a minute. Now where is that…ah, there we go.”

I bend and retrieve a paint brush from where it lies on the cold, concrete ground, the tough bristles of its head already stained with a clinging redness. Taking the brush to the woman I run it along her as she jerks, soaking up the blood from her skinless back, and complete my message on the wall.

What…what the hell is “Her Red Right Hand?”

“There! Now.” I turn to the woman, my hand loosening my belt.

''God, please no. She’s had enough. Get her to a fucking hospital!''

“I’ve got some thoughts about what to do with that toothless mouth of yours and…wait.”

I squeeze her cheeks with my hand, forcing her jaws open.

“Dammit. Almost toothless. Hang on.”

What are you doing?

I walk to the worktable along the far wall, perusing the contents strewn across it.

''No. You fucking animal. NO.''

“Here we go!”

The woman’s eyes widen as I turn holding a pair of pliers, moving back to her.

“Now, won’t be a minute. C’mere.”

I try to hold myself back. I mentally grapple with my unresponsive limbs, hoping by pure force of will to stop my hands that reach for the woman’s mouth.

She starts to scream again as I go to work. Trapped inside my mind I scream with her.

Blackness.

''Back. I’m back in the black.'' 