"The moon will be full in three days. Your spirit shall forever remain among the humans. You shall age like them, you shall die like them, and all memory of you shall fade in time. And we'll vanish along with it. You will never see us again." - Pan, "Pan's Labyrinth"
Jack settled back into his favorite hiding-spot as his guests began to poke around. He had no idea why they were here, but he'd just as soon not confront them. Unless they made a mess. Or poked their noses where they didn't belong.
He struggled with a moment of angst, toying with it as much as he suffered it. The Court certainly had him on edge; he loathed that little moniker the Lord had bestowed upon him, "Spring-Heeled Jack." As though he were some freak. Practically all the Dunters could do it. They should be glad he doesn't heed his Unseelie urges and devour every last one of them.
Maybe he should! Maybe they deserved to die, every last one of them, laughing at him behind his back, shunning him unless they absolutely must speak to him. He could even leave Razorback out of it and just feed his bottomless hunger. The horror when some innocent found all those half-eaten corpses! The horror could feed him for decades, nightmare after delicious nightmare...
Slowly his thoughts turned to her. Thinking of innocents brought the memory to the forefront unbidden. Her smiling down at him as he shuffled aside, holding the door of the tenement open for her, in awe of her beauty. The warmth of her fingers as she stopped to touch his face. The concern in her deep brown eyes as she set her groceries down and asked what had happened. The sublime terror as he bolted. She hadn't seen him since, but he was never far away. Her guardian monster.
Snarling and gutteral laughter brought him to his senses. A series of rumbling crashes rocked the hideout as his guests brought a stack of cars toppling down. The sound of metal screaming and glass exploding resounded throughout the junkyard. They cackled with glee, howling, and he caught a glimpse of their shaggy pelts in the gathering dusk, their snouts and red, glowing eyes. One of the upper cars erupted into flame with a belch; apparently, its tank had never been emptied.
Loup-garou, the Court called them. Likely scouting the 'yard as a... base. Or nest. Den? Whatever it is they call it. This won't do. People avoided the junkyard, nowadays, because people were afraid of it... but they should be afraid of him, not some savage, bloodthirsty beasts. Well, not some other savage, bloodthirsty beasts.
His stomach rumbled and he casually picked up a tire rim. Metal squeaked as his massive teeth crushed though, taking a sizeable bite of the body of it. Chewing quietly, he weighed his options and came to a decision. The Wyrd could take them easily, here in his home.
He rose from his awkward seat, patting Razorback in it's homemade sheath on his back. The Seelie ridiculed him. The Unseelie hunted him, especially his Powrie brethren. Only here was he safe, in his Domain. Nothing loved him, even here... except Razorback, when he fed it. And her. Nothing would take that away from him. He lunged upward, his thick legs pushing him some forty feet into the air, his steel-shod boots slamming with a crunch into the roof of another broken car atop another teetering pile. His guests, startled, whipped around to face him, snarling and hissing.
"Gentlefolk! I much appreciate your interest in the junkyard, but may I suggest you find other stomping grounds more to your liking? As you can see, these demesne are already claimed... and I will not give my ground."
The beasts, surprised, roared with laughter. On closer look by the flames, he could see these beasts, even for loup-garou, were sick. Misshapen limbs, mottled hides, patchy fur and even scales on some, no two looked alike, and they all looked diseased. He already knew where this would go. He smiled widely.
"Little boy, you are just in time to consecrate our new home! What better housewarming gift could we ask for than a fool with a death wish, come to bless our hearth with his blood? All... his... blood." What was apparently the leader shambled forth to greet him with its raspy, wet-sounding voice. An abomination with no neck, its head and twisted muzzle seemed to protrude forward from its hunched shoulders, and scales covered most of its body, except its mangled right forelimb. It towered above the rest.
The mutant grinned horribly as it looked up at him, who appeared to be a ragged, stubby young man, short and thick and awkward, with mismatched, patched clothes, a long automotive-sheetmetal blade tied across his back and metatarsal plate steelworker boots on his feet. Its lackeys howled excitedly as it raised a gargantuan bloodstained pipe wrench to send them forth.
"I accept your challenge, monster" Jack roared. The monsters froze at the sound of his voice, many times louder than it should be. It echoed throughout the junkyard and seemed to come from every direction. The wrecks, themselves, reverberated with the sound. He reached back and brandished Razorback with a wave; the blade snarled as it came forth, like an angry boar.
Terror crept into the beasts' minds. The junkyard seemed to deepen, towers of wrecks reached to the sky, and light could hardly be found, except for an uncooperative, frustrating red flame. The smell of metal, of oil and gas and machine fluids, stifled their senses. An inexplicable horror overcame them; something terrible was coming.
If nightmares had nightmares, these beasts began to imagine them now.
Jack sprang from his perch, screaming a gutteral Redcap battle cry as he slammed into the ground before the leader, shockwaves rattling the wrecks around them. The pack looked on numbly as he stood upright, the leader sputtering and gagging as it slowly peeled in twain before his gore-covered blade. They could do nothing for moments except stare at their death, framed in an inferno of a car fire.
What was once an unfortunately short, ugly young man had become a growing humanoid nightmare. Hides of indeterminate origin and mismatched bits of metal armor hung from his blocky frame and huge steel boots encompassed his feet. A small, shapeless reddish cap sat on top of the wild black hair of his head. Blood-red eyes glowed wickedly at the lot of them from over a crooked nose. A jagged black blade covered in red runes rested easily in one meaty, grey hand, extending to be almost as long as Jack was tall. His massive mouth grinned open, ever wider, impossibly wide, his huge, flat yellowed teeth parting as his thick tongue licked the gore from his blade. He scowled horribly at the taste.
It occured to one of the beasts that a human head could easily fit in that mouth. Or a child. That mouth was made for eating.
"Now," Jack began, reaching for a nearby wreck, "if'n tha lot a ya 're anythin' like yer master 'ere," and one massive boot nudged half of their leader aside, "then all ya to a one's blood tastes like th' inside a' me own arse. An' I'll not be dippin' me cap inta th' like o' tha' mess." He laughed as he wrenched a door off the wreck, brought it to his mouth, opened wide, and proceded to smash and shove the entire door into his mouth as though it were paper. He chewed noisily for a moment, gleefully noting their reactions as they muttered and whimpered amongst themselves, then swallowed. "H'wever, if'n it mek's any a' yer feel any better, I'll still be killin' th' lot a' ya, if only fer layin' hands on thet which ain't yers... an' not havin' tha sense ta say 'sorry.'"
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Bloody
"We never saw her coming. One moment, the entire house was still; we had no reading of life anywhere in the structure. The next, Agent 0237-3 was impaled by a mass of bone and our right cannon housing was torn completely off. We still have no readings on her, and our only visual recording shows just blurs before 0237-3's fluids obscure it. Losses constitute four entire members and catastrophic damage to surviving satellites; discovery, acquisition and assimilation of replacement satellites will take as much as a year. We think you knew we did not stand a chance. We still do not even know what you sent us against, but if you are attempting to accumulate data, we are no longer available as your shock troops. We have lost too many satellite agents already, and we are requesting reassignm-" Agent 0237-Core, whereabouts unknown
She grinned, only a little distracted. She couldn't hear Them, but They were close, still, and They were pleased. She wondered why her prey couldn't work like she did, move and see and kill like her. Now they never would. The weak once again justified the strong. She brushed a stray hair from her eyes with one bloody hand and glanced at the shattered, torn forms around her...
She found herself staring at the "bone" she'd been playing with. Four feet of osseous blade projected from her clenched fist, fat and dense and... not particularly sharp. Must hurt to be cut by it. It weighed strangely little, and she had no idea where it came from. The entire implement was covered in gore, rent flesh and bits of bone not of itself.
A voice cut through her meandering introspection. Not Them, but something piercing. Something young. A girl, alone, calling to her. The mirror was in place, the candle lit, the sun shut away. Older magicks sang to her.
She smiled again. Something feral stirred. She could smell blood, and a haze crept into the edges of her vision, a copper taste tinged her tongue. Another feast. Another revenge. They would pay. They will pay until the end of time.
She stood up straight, suddenly, and glanced down at the shard in her hand with vague disgust. Without a second look to her victims, she cast the bone aside and stalked away. The shard slammed through the door of a car parked nearby, coming to rest as it slammed through the far door and into the brick wall next to it.
Rarely did a victim call to her, anymore. When they did, she could not hear the Voices, feel the force of Their will. She could see. She could live. She could touch the rage in her heart.
It didn't happen often enough, anymore. She needed a mirror.
She grinned, only a little distracted. She couldn't hear Them, but They were close, still, and They were pleased. She wondered why her prey couldn't work like she did, move and see and kill like her. Now they never would. The weak once again justified the strong. She brushed a stray hair from her eyes with one bloody hand and glanced at the shattered, torn forms around her...
She found herself staring at the "bone" she'd been playing with. Four feet of osseous blade projected from her clenched fist, fat and dense and... not particularly sharp. Must hurt to be cut by it. It weighed strangely little, and she had no idea where it came from. The entire implement was covered in gore, rent flesh and bits of bone not of itself.
A voice cut through her meandering introspection. Not Them, but something piercing. Something young. A girl, alone, calling to her. The mirror was in place, the candle lit, the sun shut away. Older magicks sang to her.
She smiled again. Something feral stirred. She could smell blood, and a haze crept into the edges of her vision, a copper taste tinged her tongue. Another feast. Another revenge. They would pay. They will pay until the end of time.
She stood up straight, suddenly, and glanced down at the shard in her hand with vague disgust. Without a second look to her victims, she cast the bone aside and stalked away. The shard slammed through the door of a car parked nearby, coming to rest as it slammed through the far door and into the brick wall next to it.
Rarely did a victim call to her, anymore. When they did, she could not hear the Voices, feel the force of Their will. She could see. She could live. She could touch the rage in her heart.
It didn't happen often enough, anymore. She needed a mirror.
Monday, August 8, 2011
"Bandersnatch"
Nobody is sure, exactly, when the problem started, but when one little girl awoke screaming in the night during a rash of child disappearances throughout the Chicago slums in the 1970s, the only thing she could say about her nightmare was "Bandersnatch," after a monster in a popular Lewis Carroll poem. Over the next few years, she found other kids who had dreamed of a similar beast... and the name stuck.
The young lady disappeared on her thirteenth birthday. Her parents, awakened by the sound of a coughing roar upstairs, only found her destroyed bedroom... and a lot of odd fur or wool.
The Bandersnatch (or The Chicago Bandersnatch, among children from other areas) is a massive beast. Standing roughly six feet tall at the shoulder, it towers over adults and is downright monstrous to children. The overall impression is that of a large dog... a plump, barrel-chested body on heavy legs with oversized paws, long, floppy ears, a long, thick tail curled over it's back, and a little poof of extra fur on it's head. The poof on it's head and the ears come together to make the Bandersnatch look almost like it's wearing a funny wig. The whole body seems to be covered in a dirty cream fur that's closer to wool, softening the entire image... until you see the face.
The face of a Bandersnatch has been captured in local children's drawing more accurately than any adult suspects. Closer to human than canine, the massive, flat face has absolutely no nose, only two little, beady bright green eyes over a massively oversized lipless human-like mouth full of stubby fangs set in protuding red gums. The Bandersnatch almost always leaves it's mouth hanging open, letting it's enormous, mottled tongue hang out. A cloud of rotting stench permeates the air around it, enamating from it's brownish saliva and spread about by it's lolling tongue as it drools. The Bandersnatch enamates a sense of glee and hunger, as though excited about the idea of biting it's prey in half. It could easily do so to a child.
The only certainty anyone's determined about Bandersnatch (singular and plural... yes, there are more than one of them) is that it seems to prey on only bright but angry young children... usually boys. The more angry the child... the more vicious, brutal, violent or sadistic they are... the more likely, it seems, that a Bandersnatch will come for them. This isn't absolute, and many boys have grown to become violent, brutal young men... but it still does happen occasionally. Sadly, these same boys never believe the stories when they're warned. Other children almost never actually see them... almost never.
Nightmares have to come from somewhere.
The young lady disappeared on her thirteenth birthday. Her parents, awakened by the sound of a coughing roar upstairs, only found her destroyed bedroom... and a lot of odd fur or wool.
The Bandersnatch (or The Chicago Bandersnatch, among children from other areas) is a massive beast. Standing roughly six feet tall at the shoulder, it towers over adults and is downright monstrous to children. The overall impression is that of a large dog... a plump, barrel-chested body on heavy legs with oversized paws, long, floppy ears, a long, thick tail curled over it's back, and a little poof of extra fur on it's head. The poof on it's head and the ears come together to make the Bandersnatch look almost like it's wearing a funny wig. The whole body seems to be covered in a dirty cream fur that's closer to wool, softening the entire image... until you see the face.
The face of a Bandersnatch has been captured in local children's drawing more accurately than any adult suspects. Closer to human than canine, the massive, flat face has absolutely no nose, only two little, beady bright green eyes over a massively oversized lipless human-like mouth full of stubby fangs set in protuding red gums. The Bandersnatch almost always leaves it's mouth hanging open, letting it's enormous, mottled tongue hang out. A cloud of rotting stench permeates the air around it, enamating from it's brownish saliva and spread about by it's lolling tongue as it drools. The Bandersnatch enamates a sense of glee and hunger, as though excited about the idea of biting it's prey in half. It could easily do so to a child.
The only certainty anyone's determined about Bandersnatch (singular and plural... yes, there are more than one of them) is that it seems to prey on only bright but angry young children... usually boys. The more angry the child... the more vicious, brutal, violent or sadistic they are... the more likely, it seems, that a Bandersnatch will come for them. This isn't absolute, and many boys have grown to become violent, brutal young men... but it still does happen occasionally. Sadly, these same boys never believe the stories when they're warned. Other children almost never actually see them... almost never.
Nightmares have to come from somewhere.
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