It's that time of year!
Welcome! I am delighted to take part in this fun blog hop once again. There are always great stories, poems, and horrifying goodness abounds.
I would like to introduce my new horror serial. It's a freebie I am sending out in my newsletter. Episode V goes out soon but if you signup now, you can still get all the previous ones (the email has a link to a hidden webpage where you can download all episodes, I just add the new one there before the email goes out).
I am having a bit of a snafu with my email: evidently I sent too many. As soon as I sort that, I will resume sending the episodes.
And here is an excerpt of Episode X: Bones and Baphomet
The massive door loomed ahead. The Doctor set down his bag and dug through it. Metal things clinked inside. The darkness seemed to pull back from him, as if alarmed. Henri shivered. Just the waxing and waning of the candle light. But that door. And behind it...He couldn’t shake the feeling that there was a presence behind that door. Someone was in there. Listening. The back of his neck prickled and his candle dipped in his shaking grip. The light flickered and waxed dribbled on the floor.
The splattering was obscenely loud. The Doctor whipped his head around to look. He’d taken a long pointed tool from his bag. It glinted in the light.
“I keep surgery tools on me, just in case,” he said. “I’ve dabbled in the cutter’s trade.” “Dabbled?” Asked Mr. Raulings. “Is that something to dabble in?”
“It’s often life-saving,” the Doctor said. “Somehow that’s not respectable.”
“Can’t be chopping people one day, dancing with Countesses the next,” Mr. Raulings said. “Saving lives has nothing to do with high society. Thankfully. But how is surgery going to help us get into this cellar?”
“I’m going to misuse my tools,” the Doctor said, sticking the pointed tool into the key hole on the lock.
“Oh,” said Mr. Raulings, watching in fascination as the Doctor jiggled the lock. He stuck another pointed implement in and twisted. “Dabble in any other less-than savory trades?” Mr. Raulings asked.
The darkness behind the door stirred as the lock clicked open. Henri held his breath—half expecting the darkness to blast the door open. The Doctor threw his tools back in the bag and scooped it up.
“The Marquis is hiding something,” he said. “I think it’s down here.” He tried to pull the door open, but it barely budged. He waved Mr. Raulings over and together they heaved on the massive door. Finally, with a shriek that nearly made Henri drop his candle, the door slid open a few inches. Henri sucked in a gasp. In the echo of the door, he could have sworn he heard a chuckle from the shadows beyond.
His spine tingled and he wanted to yell at them to stop, but they just flinched at the door’s scream and heaved again. A quieter shrieking ran through the dark and the door came open wide enough to slip through. Henri stared at the narrow abyss, waiting for the presence—the chuckle—to emerge. They should not have opened this!
But nothing came out. The darkness was still. The Doctor waved Mr. Lawson forward.
“No!” Yelped Henri. They all looked at him. Even the darkness watched. “Did—didn’t you hear the...chuckling?” He asked. His voice was much higher than normal. The Doctor frowned. Mr. Lawson glanced at Mr. Raulings and Mr. Raulings shook his head dumbly. Henri swallowed, staring at the crack of the door. “Must have been my imagination.”
Mr. Lawson shivered and the Doctor nodded at him to step through.
Henri took deep breaths of the musty air as the lad approached the dark. He slipped through with his candle. There was no scream—no extinguishing of the candle. No evil laughter. The Doctor vanished through after Mr. Lawson and then Mr. Raulings sidled through the gap. Henri was alone in the antechamber of hell. He crossed himself and hurried to follow the others through.
A long vaulted hallway stretched before them. Ancient pillars grew from the walls, supporting the vaults above. It was empty. The end of the hall was swallowed up in the thick shadows. The air was sticky and warm...it moved around them, almost as if the darkness breathed.
Then Henri gripped Mr. Raulings’ shoulder with his free hand.
In the deep gloom at the end of the hall glowed two red eyes.
A sigh wafted through the hall...a warm gust brushed their faces and Henri swallowed again. “Odd,” remarked the Doctor, marching forward.
Mr. Lawson hurried after him with the candle.
“For Pete’s sake,” said Mr. Raulings, “loosen your grip!”
Henri let go of him and followed him deeper into the dark. As they neared the end, a huge arch loomed out of the gloom. It led into a void of night, illumined only by the two dots of red light. Then, as they drew ever nearer, gold gleamed here and there and weird shapes oozed out of the shadows. Two more arches materialized on either side of the main one, leading off to the left and right, but Henri’s gaze was fixed on the red eyes.
The four of them stepped through the massive arch and found themselves in a chapel.
“The Marquis said there wasn’t a chapel in this castle,” Mr. Raulings said, gazing around at the central aisle with its gold leaf accented pillars. Henri’s eyes were fixed on the altar.
It was draped in black. On either side were statues of a goat-headed creature with breasts and penis.
Behind the altar...the red eyes shone. But they were the candles held by Mr. Lawson and Henri, reflected back at them from a mirror. Icy terror gripped his every nerve in spite of the strange heat of the air. He had seen this very chapel in his dreams. They drew up short before the altar and Henri spoke, his voice high and tremulous.
“This is not a chapel to God.”
Something white flashed by in the mirror behind them and a hissing shot though the shadows all around. Henri whirled around, candle held high. Mr. Raulings cursed and pulled out a knife. The Doctor scanned the darkness.
“Who is there?” He called.
The silence vibrated with menace. Henri dared to glance back at the mirror, only to see himself, naked with Mrs. Raulings. He yelped and the others whirled around. The vision was gone. All four of their pale faces stared back at them in the pools of candle light. Nothing but shadow and silence.
“Well,” said the Doctor at last. “Nothing here but blasphemy. I was hoping for something more substantial.”
Henri would have sworn he’d heard the chuckling again, but only Mr. Lawson flinched. “What...what did we see? In the mirror?” Asked Mr. Lawson.
“Luc?” Suggested Mr. Raulings, his knuckles whitening on his knife handle.
“We will see,” said the Doctor. “Lawson, with me, left aisle. Raulings, Gausinport, right.”
They split up and marched back through the chapel. It appeared empty. There was nowhere to hide. The pillars, though many, were too thin. Other than a few ancient candlesticks with old black candles, there were no other furnishings besides the altar and its mirror. He did not like turning his back on that mirror.
“Let’s look in here,” the Doctor said, leading the way through one of the smaller arches on either side of the great hallway. It was made of the same ancient blocks, dripping with moisture. They followed it for about fifty feet, then it cut to the left and their flickering lights fell upon a half-rotten door.
“What’s that smell?” Asked Mr. Raulings, covering his nose. The gloom swirled with a rank mustiness—mold and decay...Henri did not want to see what lay beyond that glistening door. Again he imagined that presence lurking beyond the door: darkness coalesced, decay manifest, destruction imminent. His breath rasped loud. The condensation on the walls softly exhaled the fungal dissolution of ancient, unnamed things.
The Doctor kicked the door and it popped off its hinges. A wave of murky heat rolled over them. Not the smell of death, the smell of life: life taking root in the dead. Flourishing life.
“Hasn’t been opened in years,” he said, taking Mr. Lawson’s candle and shining it into the chamber beyond. “Just as I thought,” he said. “It’s a crypt.”
He turned away. But as he did, Henri thought he saw a flicker of something pale moving in the void beyond the door.
“What was that?” He gasped.
“What?” Demanded the Doctor, whirling around.
“I thought I saw something—moving.”
“Stop it,” snapped Mr. Raulings, flicking his knife at his side. Mr. Lawson’s face had gone pale.
“This door has been rotting in place for years now,” the Doctor said. “There couldn’t be anyone or anything in there.” Another wave of heat washed over them. Rotting earth and sulfur. Henri shivered in the heat.
“We should go then,” he said.
“No use looking in a crypt,” Mr. Raulings agreed.
“Unless we’re looking for bodies,” the Doctor said, peering back through the gaping door.
“Are we?” Asked Mr. Raulings. “What did you hope to find down here?”
“I’m not sure.” The Doctor seemed reluctant to climb over the remains of the door into the crypt. Henri could only just make out a few urns in the light of the guttering candle.
Something was watching them, though. He could feel it. Like it was staring at him from beyond the candle light. He did not want to see it.
At last, the Doctor turned away from the crypt.
“It is an expansive crypt,” he murmured. “Could have a secret exit...” “A secret exit?” Scoffed Mr. Raulings.
“Let’s check the other passage,” Henri suggested, leading the way. He did not want his back exposed to the crypt. The others followed and the dark billowed behind them, pursuing. Henri found himself ahead of the others and slowed down. They passed the entrance of the unholy chapel and went through the other arch. The passage was shorter and turned sharply to the right, where a door of iron bars hung limp on its rusted hinges.
Beyond that was a hall lined with cells.
It was a real dungeon.
At the end of the hall, another broken door led into a room lined with rusted and rotting machines. The frame of a rack, its spool broken off. An iron maiden. A Judas seat. Thumbscrew. Many more loomed like twisted skeletons in the shadows. There was a furnace and tables covered in old tools... manacles dangled from the ceiling. There was a fire pit in the center where prisoners could be stretched over flame.
Henri swallowed.
“Well,” said the Doctor, “at least they haven’t been used in a while.”
They turned around and walked back past the cells. A flash of white made Henri spin toward one of the cells. His heart pattered weakly. And then he saw what it really was.
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Very tense and creepy.
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