Bad Stacks Story Collection Box Set (35 page)
Read Bad Stacks Story Collection Box Set Online
Authors: Scott Nicholson
“And what do we do with the girl?” asks one soldier drunkenly.
“We drop her…at the nearettthhh…nunnery,” another responds. “As her father ordered.”
They discuss the elaborate charade, how I could not know the purpose of the expedition or else it would surely fail. I had to be deceived. The betrayal cuts me to the quick.
“Well,” announces the frightening man. The ground crunches under his boots as he stands from the campfire. “Since she is forfeit to the nuns…”
I cannot imagine what elicits the boisterous laughs that follow, but his heavy steps approach my cart. He tears aside the curtains, his apish shape terrifying in the outline of the fire’s light under the arc of the cart cover. The cart dips from his weight as he climbs inside. A smell wafts into the air, musky and sweaty. Vinegary. At first I’m stunned with bewilderment but soon fiery terror swells from the pit of my stomach and my throat enflames with hoarse screams. As easily as he clasped my shoulders to carry me into the clearing, he pins me to the furs and pulls up my skirts, his thick knees wedging my frail legs apart. I panic, arcing my body to pull back my hips. My virginity is exposed to his threatening heat. Sensitive. Delicate. That slight part of me that is worth anything. As I squirm against his iron grip, his hand slams against the side of my head. An explosion behind my eyes. I fall limp. He prods the lips of my tiny opening with the naked end of his bloated, stinking penis.
“Nice and small,” he says gruffly. “Just the way I like it.”
He forces his manhood into my tiny opening, ripping the delicate skin. Agony floods between my legs at that tender nexus, his first thrust inside burning like a brand on sheep flesh. My narrow opening resists his passage, yet he thrusts up into me again and again, beating my womb like a fist. Nausea blooms in my belly when he removes himself. I feel the sickening dribble against my savaged virginity, the bitter stench of his seed mingling with my blood as it stripes my inner thigh.
Fire licks my sex with disabling anguish. My thighs and stomach are bruised, as are every place he has touched me.…
But as soon as he descends from the cart, another enters.
And then another.
I lose consciousness during, between. There are so many.
A squire is egged on by his master, but he takes one look at me, shakes his head, and drops the curtain.
By the time they have all fallen asleep by the fire, the furs of the cart soak with the grisly fluids of my womb and the rancid puss of their violence. My hair has been pulled out and strews the floor like bits of flax. My abdomen throbs so badly I cannot sit up without feeling knives cutting me inside, slicing upwards from my bleeding opening. My small tits are ripped. Bitten. Blackened with teeth marks. My left wrist dangles broken, encircled by a hot cuff of pain. I cannot move because the pain has clasped its hands around my head. It shouts in my ear that I have been mortally wounded.
Still, the physical torment is nary a thing compared to the overwhelming disgust that consumes me. I try to flee the oppressive feelings of hopelessness by imagining myself at home with my companions, at my mother’s side, or even in the sanctuary of a nunnery, but the betrayal of my family leaves a gorge in my memory where any good thought once dwelt. I start to pray and realize the greatest betrayal was from He who should protect little girls from treachery. We who have so little, who need so much.…
I am alone. And I want to die.
A rising mistral of hatred stirs in the gorge where my fond memories once dwelt, fanning the winking embers of my will to live, blowing them to a spiraling flame of fury. The words come, bidden by hatred.
Do you want to kill your mother?
Yes, I want to kill my mother.
Do you want to kill your father?
Yes, I want to kill my father.
Do you want to kill the men who did this?
Yes, I want to kill the men who did this. All of them.
Though hatred scalds my veins, I cannot kill those responsible. I am too weak. Too small. My father, my mother. Even the men sleeping around the fire would suffer little at my hand. But there is one thing that I could kill that would hurt them all very, very much.…
My limbs quiver uncontrollably as I attempt to sit up. I imagine my eyes blackening, my belly swelling, my nails cracking as I wriggle inch by excruciating inch towards the lip of the cart. My lost hair sticks to my hands as I push myself along the wooden slats. Although I shiver, I feel no chill on my naked skin. Only the feverish embrace of ill intent.
I roll over the lip and hit the soggy ground. Stunned, I lie there and my eyes open greedily for the slightest noise from the camp. I hear nothing but the labored breathing of evil men. My thighs quiver with agony as I draw my legs under me. I raise my head to scan the fireside. By the remains of the victory feast, a knife lies slick with spit and fat. Shaking, I stand. Stones and twigs gouge my tender soles as I stumble around the braggarts, liars, and rapists. Those devils who swear to angels. With my good hand, I close my fingers around the wooden handle of the knife.
To think they feared things of the wood.
Gripping the knife, I hobble towards the object of my revenge. The creature pitifully bound in the odd harness winks at me drowsily. She–for I have determined it is a she–raises her sloping snout as far as she can to salute my staggering approach. As I raise the knife above my head for the strike at her exposed neck, I am overcome with pity for her and my arm falls to my side. How can I hurt something as innocent and as vulnerable as I once was? How can I take away the life that spoke so clearly to my own? I cannot, I realize, and the knife hangs feebly in my weak fingers.
Then, the creature bows its head, turning it to further expose its graceful neck. Those deadly and brutish pulses that throb beneath that waxy pelt.…
It offers those pulses to me with such unspeakable dignity that I begin to weep. They say that weeping keeps away the Devil, but I place my hand on the warm pelt and watch the wan lips tremble once again. She knows she will die, one way or the other. The blood in my knife hand–in my entire body–again boldly throbs in desperate response to those brutish pulses. No one is served by love. No one–
I mercilessly thrust the blade into the creature’s neck with all my hatred. All my despair. All the worthless joy of a little girl who lives in this nightmare of a world. Everything of any strength that I can imagine, I sink into that fateful strike as the creature lies perfectly still for the sacrifice.
From the wound a wellspring gushes of cloying, blackened gore. The creature twitches in gentle death throes against its harness and ropes. I withdraw the knife, which releases ripe droplets one after another in an inky torrent. Mesmerized by the rhythm of the drops, I hold my fingers under the flow and smear the gore between my thumb and forefingers. Like the starlight from a bald winter sky, the blood scintillates with mystery and unholy power. I ghoulishly press my hands to the wound as I revel in it. The sticky fluid quickly coats my hands in a lather that penetrates my fingertips with raw power. I eagerly touch a viscous fingertip to my tongue to taste the surge of triumph in my mouth. The everlasting tingles against my teeth even as I withdraw my finger.
I breathe faster, more excited.
I cup my hand under the droplets until they pool darkly in my palm. I then gingerly part my frail legs, reach up between and anoint the raging wounds of my sex with this handful of unholy blood.
Starlight and nightfall. Flaxen strands and chalky steeples. Bells peal through the canopy of the cursed wood as I collapse, crippled by the stretching of my bones until they splinter deafeningly and fold back upon themselves. My limbs in front lengthen, hands hardening into sharp stumps. My fair skin erupts in feral snowy hairs. When I try to scream, my high-pitched voice hollows to a hoarse bellow. Azure tears roll down my pale cheeks, the color leeching from my stinging pupils. An eruption behind my eyes forces them tightly closed as something gashes my forehead from within with blinding force.…
The men stir from sleep at the fire. They gasp in outrage and confusion.
I lean back on my haunches, squint my sallow eyes, and howl as I wag my frightful jaw. And before any a one can lift a sword, I plunge at a full gallop between the trees into the arms of this blackest fairy night.
Because there you–and I do mean
you
–will never catch me again.
THE END
Learn more about the author at
www.mariaalexander.net
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A collection of 11 mystery tales, from gangsters to domestic turmoil, with bonus tales from J.A. Konrath and Simon Wood.
CURTAINS
By Scott Nicholson
Copyright © 2010 Scott Nicholson
Published by
Haunted Computer Books
Scott’s
Amazon Author Central
page
CURTAINS TABLE OF CONTENTS
When the family dog turns up ill, a man is faced with a brutal choice while his wife carries her own dark secret.
2.
Dead Air
A late-night deejay makes a special connection with a female serial killer.
3.
How to Build Your Own Coffin
A man’s love of woodcraft is equaled only by his desire for a good wife and trustworthy companion.
Vincent wants to escape his past, but he has to do it as Robert Wells—or maybe Charlie Ehle. He’s not sure which.
Herman is suspicious of the new neighbor, who just might be the killing kind.
6.
The Agreement
by J.A. Konrath
A man who goes back on his word is in for a hot time in the old town tonight.
A writer should know better than anyone that crime—and crime fiction—doesn’t pay.
8.
Making Ends Meet
by Simon Wood
A man takes a special approach to family problems.
A reporter’s coverage of a local church group goes from Page 3 to the obituaries.