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Posts Tagged ‘Rocksalt’

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Woodminster: South Pacific, Day Eight — C&R X

In Fiction, Horror, Theatre, Writing on October 12, 2017 at 11:54 am

(Sometimes you are dusty. Let these mummified hands brush you clean. Listen to their first insidious whispers here.)

Day Eight: Wednesday, 26 July / Friday, July 21 2017 – C&R X

As he braces himself to fire,Weedbeard’s right bootheel touches a small patch of the insect grool and is burned away on the right side. He doesn’t notice, racking a fresh charge with a lever on the underside of the shotgun as he shouts, “Rocksalt, Fatherfucker!” The second blast is a dull roar; my ears are still ringing from the first.

The blast of salt tears through the baby doll, its larval plorper and the rotting hand, burning chunks splattered backwards onto Dolly Lurker’s porcelain skin – which now cracks, like actual porcelain. Dolly Lurker is gnashing its giant flapping shutter trapdoor teeth, breaking spider legs with juicy, meaty chunkings; the arm of the rotting hand holding the nightmare baby doll jutting off at an odd, jaunty angle like FDR’s cigarette holder. We have nothing to fear but a giant mouthful of spider legs! This thought is all mine, and it’s a relief to not hear others in there.

Weedbeard racks a third charge with the lever – I look over: this is a revolving shotgun. I say, “Fucking rad!” – but I’m drowned out as Weedbeard bellows, “Thrice-blessed by Rabbis, Priests and Pagan Conjurers! Smoked in the Smokey Smoke of Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme!”

As he says those last five words, ancient harmony wells up around us: thousands of monks, angelic choirs, every hippie who ever lived? Whoever it is, there is a moment of soul-wrenching beauty as that harmony coalesces around Weedbeard. He fires the shotgun on the button of the musical phrase.

There is a strange stillness to the blast – the salt crystals meet a barrier in the air for an instant, but the words Smokey-Smoke appear in the air, in a circle, around the blast. Is this the smoke of the blast, or the smoke in which the salt was smokey-smoked? I don’t know. But it puffs out into those words and then is sucked into every shard of salt – and the barrier is broken.

Dolly Lurker is blasted back against the wall, shrinking, two hands reaching up to hold its cracking face together, spider legs scrabbling at odd angles for purchase on anything. One of them is caught on the doorjamb of this upper door and rips out, falling to the floor with a clatter. Weedbeard has racked a fourth charge and blasts the leg away from the door; it shatters, but even the shards twitch and jumble about. I have a feeling that they’d slice anyone they could reach right now.

“Ma-MA! Ma-MAAaaughlghghghllllrrrrrghhhhh … ” Dolly Lurker sounds like it’s back down at the bottom of the stairs. I’m standing – when did that happen? – and I move toward the door to look.

Judy and Weedbeard both grab my arms and pull me back. I’m fighting them. Why?

“You heard the voice, didn’t you, Edward?” Judy says.

“It’s got a deeper hold on you that it would if you’d never heard it,” Weedbeard says.

They’re strong, but I’m determined to look through that door. I’m dragging them toward the opening. It looks innocuous. Just a doorway. I say, “How do I tell you both to fuck off but in a very respectful way?”

Weedbeard steps in front of me, grabbing me by the shoulders. I’m able to push him toward the door. I’m not usually this strong. “This is why I told you the memory was unsafe!” he says. “This doorway is warded and therefore acts like a portal – memories are malleable and can be changed here! You passed out when Alan fell, you didn’t see all of this. You need to step back to your present before you alter this leaf of time!”

But I’m pushing him. We’re almost at the door. I’m winning.

It feels so good!

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Woodminster: South Pacific, Day Eight — C&R VI

In Fiction, Theatre, Writing on October 6, 2017 at 12:24 pm

(Your curiosity has gotten the better of you, now take control! Start here.)

Day Eight: Wednesday, 26 July / Friday, July 21 2017 – C&R VI

I feel pulled toward the first step, even as another cry echoes from below:

“Ma-MA … Ma-MA …”

It looks like there is light coming toward the dark doorway, a dim glow outlining shapes in the darkness not revealed by the light of my phone.

I hear Judy to my right, it sounds like she might be coming from the scene shop, but I can’t turn to look. She’s saying, “I think I heard it coming from over here, Bill – Oh Good Lord – ”

She’s much closer now, I think she’s just outside the door to my right. A set of footsteps has followed her; someone says:

“I thought this door was warded.”

“It was, Alan — it is. Where’s Bill?” Judy says. Her words are casual, her tone is one of deep concern.

From far away, I hear a man bellow, “Protego!”

Weedbeard

But that doesn’t matter, because at the bottom of the stairs, a hand is reaching around the right side of the doorjamb.

“Ma-MA … !”

Closer now, Weedbeard’s voice bellows, “Servo!”

I’m very cold. The light is brighter down there. Fingers numb, I drop my cell phone. I sense that Judy catches it, her reflexes quick. I note my surprise at this through a novocaine mist of fascination. The light looks like wisps of fog, it’s spreading and reaching along the floor to the doorjamb and beyond. It looks warm like butter, and I take the first step of the stairs.

Running footsteps arrive. I hear Weedbeard outside the door to my right. He bellows, “Praemunio!”

A wave of warmth washes over me from the right. I shudder at the initial contact, goosebumps covering my body. A second hand grasps the doorjamb below.

“Ma-MA! Ahauuughghghghghlllrrrrrblghhhhh … ”

One of the men gasps. Judy says, “No – it can’t be – ”

I’m shoved to the side, landing among boxes and large umbrellas – and Weedbeard is there, throwing a handful of white powder down the stairs. Where it hits, the concrete walls and steps sizzle as little black burn marks appear.

Something pink unfurls from around the base of the door at the bottom of the steps. It looks like a fern frond, growing fast. Weedbeard goes very still. I follow his lead. He moves a foot and the pink thing puffs and stiffens, expanding across the ceiling of the stairwell like a cobra inflating its hood. Only it sends out meaty pink tendrils that stick to the ceiling and walls, a nodule under the surface of its skin turning to follow any movement by Weedbeard.

“Alan,” says Weedbeard, and the nodule pulses out toward Weedbeard’s face when he speaks, as from all of the frond’s meaty surface little sporangia blossom with thick popping plorps. They look like strange lollipops: a thin white stalk supporting a dark pink candy. Weedbeard is more still than before, and I sense that he’s barely breathing.

I see movement at the bottom of the steps. The buttery light is much brighter, and with tarantulic precision something crawls around the doorjamb below the two hands – then grasps tight.

It’s a third hand.